Gettin' This Party Started

Our anniversary trip was filled with so many "this could only happen to us" moments so pull up a chair and prepare to laugh {at us} in this week's podcast!!

Click here to listen.

And now, some photos to go along with the stories!

Our 4th anniversary trip was to French Lick, Indiana, which is about 3 hours from our home, in the southern part of the state. Ryan had some trouble keeping a straight face about the photo shoot before we left home:

My life is never dull.

I'd packed our luggage and packed up the car before he got home from work on Thursday, so we could leave as soon as his day was over! We stopped for a quick dinner at Wendy's {thanks for the gift card, Mom and Dad!} and then began traveling. It really was a nice evening to drive, even if it was dark the whole way.

We stopped at a Starbucks about halfway through the trip for some caffeine, and that's where the whole story came about from the podcast where Ryan drove the wrong way through the parking lot!

We arrived at our hotel about 9:30 that night. We so wanted to stay at one of the two big fancy hotels in French Lick {more on those tomorrow}, but they were out of our budget. Several months ago, I had contacted the hotels to see if we could stay with a discount of some sort since I knew I would be covering the whole trip on the blog, but the people I emailed never wrote me back at all, which made me sad. {At least let me know you got the email and the answer is no!}

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO for those of you who may be contemplating a trip to French Lick, and like us, may not be able to afford the big hotels, allow me to suggest the Comfort Suites. They're just on the edge of town {too far to walk to attractions but definitely close enough to be right there for all the French Lick activities}.

When we arrived, we went upstairs to check out our room, and Ryan went back down to the car to get all our luggage, and that's when I noticed our room had a big crack in the door! Like I could see right into the hallway from inside my room - WITH a closed and locked door!

I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, so before we unpacked anything, Ryan went back to the desk and they moved us right across the hall, no questions asked, no hassle, and no problem! And the very next day, they had guys there working on the messed up door.

Our room was really comfortable - and because we were staying for three days, having a couch was really handy! It was nice to have a seating area!

All in all, we were very pleased with this hotel. Complimentary coffee at all times, a nice breakfast each morning, and comfy beds - OH! And good water pressure in the shower. {You know that's important!!}

And the featured TV show of the weekend for our anniversary??

Happy anniversary!!!!

I should also pause to show you our gifts we gave each other this year, which we actually exchanged early. I like to gift the traditional anniversary gifts. You know how every anniversary has a theme. So the first year was paper, and I gave him some subway art with words describing the activities of our first year together. The second year was cotton, so I made him some canvas art using a picture from one of our trips and a quote he loved. {It still hangs in our living room!} The third year was leather, and I gave him a leather desk caddy, which he turned into our "remote boat" for our living room.

Year four themes? Fruit and flowers. Killin' me. I read all kinds of suggestions on Pinterest, and none of them helped. Some suggested getting a fruit tree. Well, our anniversary is in December, which is not really tree planting weather. {Found out later he had a fruit tree once and really hated maintaining it, so I guess that would have been bad anyway.} A trip to an orchard or winery was another suggestion. Again...December. Plus, we don't drink. And while there are some guys who probably would like getting flowers, Ryan isn't one of them. And it's too cold to get a flowering bush or something for the landscaping.

So even though it felt like the most lame gift ever, I fell back on his deep love of fruit pies and had my mom make him a homemade black raspberry pie with a crust message:

 I think he liked it.

And even though he doesn't typically stick to the themed gifts, he did this year. Gave me a beautiful galvanized planter with "always thankful" inscribed on it. He said that remains his outlook on our relationship. {Swoon.}

I'll have to go back to Pinterest for planting ideas!!

Great start to the anniversary! :)

An Anniversary Trip Down Memory Lane

Our anniversary trip is officially in the books, and it was lovely. Can't wait to tell you all about it throughout the week!

But one of my favorite parts of each anniversary is looking back at all our monthiversary pictures. It's fun to remember each month, where we were, what was happening in our lives, and what color my hair was that month. HA!

 Hey! I only repeated shirts twice! Not bad! :)

Another fun tradition we have is to recreate some of our wedding pictures on each anniversary. You can click on each one to enlarge it, since they're in a line this year and maybe harder to see.

Clearly we've never been able to replicate the amazing scenery of the wedding, but it's been fun to redo these each year. {Photo credit for our wedding photos goes to Ryan's mom, and Stephen Rudd, our wedding photographer.}

* Our first anniversary pictures were taken at a Christmas tree farm and in our backyard.

* Our second anniversary pictures were taken outside the hotel where we stayed near Chicago. The lovely tall weeds were the barrier between the hotel and the interstate. LOL!

* Our third anniversary pictures were taken in a field behind a nursing home - and all photo credit for those pictures goes to our friend Nathan Holloway. We tripod-photographed all the rest.

* This year's pictures were taken in the West Baden city park.

So much fun to redo these every year, and we were grateful that the weather held enough on our anniversary this year to take them minus coats! YAY!!!

Come back and hang out tomorrow for a virtual vacation!

Linking up with Tamar!

The Shafferland Shuffle

What a LOVELY week it has been! Thank you so much, to all of you who sent us well-wishes for our anniversary! It was a beautiful day, and I'm so excited to tell you about all our adventures. Meanwhile...here is a peek at our week!

* Because I had been sick the day after Thanksgiving, I didn't QUITE finish all the decorating of the house by Saturday night. So after church on Sunday, Ryan and I finished up the few decorations that hadn't been assembled. I was SO HAPPY when night came and the house was all twinkly with pretty lights. It was a lovely way to end a weekend/begin a week!

* On Monday, I had to stop by Ryan's work to drop off a wreath his work girls had made at our craft night. {They had left it at our house because it was raining so hard that night.} Until they needed the wreath, I hung it on Brutus, Ryan's rhino coat hook. Hilarious! Speaking of rain, Monday was a dreary, rainy day - perfect for staying inside and working, which is exactly what I did. And that night, I organized all the journals I told you about in the blog post earlier this week, and Ryan wanted a picture of me with all the journals in which I prayed over my someday-husband!

* Tuesday was the premiere of Fixer Upper, so of course I had to show my support with my #shiplap shirt! :) After it was over, I realized I didn't have all 10,000 steps in for the day, so I finished by walking the house, and Braeya did her favorite thing, which is to high-five me as I walk past the chair. It's hysterical. She does this ALL THE TIME when I finish my steps by walking the house. Must have worn her out, though, because she went to rest under the Christmas tree when that was over.

* Wednesday, I had a major Christmas-card-addressing party, which was much fun. Got them all done, and Ryan did my least favorite part which was sealing them all. {HUSBAND AWARD!!!} And even though it was early, we exchanged our anniversary gifts that day. The reasons behind that are much too long for a recap post, but I'll tell you more about it later. So here's Ryan with his anniversary pie, and here I am with my anniversary planter! :)

* Ryan worked all day Thursday, and while he did so, I packed our suitcases and the car so we could leave right away for our anniversary getaway! I can't wait to tell you all about our trip, because we had SO MUCH FUN, but here are a few highlights to get you started. Our destination was French Lick, which is a town about 3 hours south of where we live. Our trip was pretty uneventful...dinner...Starbucks...narrowly missing hitting a deer...and finally getting settled in our hotel room late that evening. {There actually were a handful of funny stories from this day, but I'll save them.}

* Friday was our actual anniversary, and we had such a fun day together. The Lord blessed us with a sunny day {although nowhere near the 82 degrees of our ACTUAL wedding day} and we had such fun touring the fancy hotels in French Lick, walking around town, doing our anniversary photo shoot, watching our wedding video, taking a carriage ride, enjoying food and coffee together, and creating some wonderful memories to last forever! Loved our day!

* Yesterday was THE most wonderful, low-key, restful day. We loved it. Sleeping in, BBQ, walks through Christmas finery, exploring town squares, coffee and checkers, movies, good talks, and just...lovely. {By the way. Bet you can't guess who lost at checkers.}

The Saturday Six

One.

Ryan and I have been praying all week for the people of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. My goodness! What a devastating situation! While we have only been there once {and I know some people vacation here all. the. time.}, it was hard to see the pictures of places we had been, that held such happy memories for us, and see the ruin left behind. I know the media hasn't covered the story very intensely, but keep these folks in your prayers! {Here and here are a few of our memories from our trip to this area!}


Two.

Sometimes you need an ornament, but you can't find one that fits, so you have to start customizing! I wanted ornaments for our tree that reflected our house sale/purchase this year, but even after scouring the internet, I came up short on moving-related ornaments. So I found an Etsy shop that made two ornaments for me - one for each house. The seller was really great to work with and even shipped my orders together and refunded me the additional shipping costs. I'm so pleased with the ornaments {in cost and quality} and wanted to recommend her in case anyone needs an ornament made! Lily Reed is the name of the shop! :)

Three.

It's a short little blog post. Doesn't even have a picture to go with it. But it packs a powerful little message. So you should read it. Wise words from Caroline Rothschild.

Four.

Source

'Tis the season of every man for himself, right? Survival of the fittest among shoppers and drivers and...what if we paused to be kind? Intentionally kind? This post offers some suggestions for being kind in the smallest of ways, but it might just make a huge impact!    

Five. 

Source

If you are looking for some not-your-mama's homemade Christmas ornaments for your tree, check out this post by the talented KariAnne. I think some of them {hello, spring snowflake, I'm looking at you!} are just crazy adorable.  

Six.

Source

A couple of weeks ago, I read an interview on my friend Sarah Forgrave's blog about Amelia Rhodes' new book called Pray A to Z. I was so taken with the interview that I knew I had to read the book!


Pray A to Z is an unusual book. It's not a story that you read from cover to cover. In fact, if you're not really a fan of reading at all, you'll like this book, because you can take it one short page at a time. One per day if you'd like. This book is a guide. Who among us hasn't promised to pray for someone and then...we forget...or we don't know what to say...or our prayers turn into a long list of "God bless {fill in 105 blanks}." Maybe we've even backed off from praying like we should because we don't feel effective in our prayers.

That's where this book can help. Amelia has taken the alphabet, something most of us can safely say we know by heart, and she's made lists of five categories we can pray for associated with each letter. And the last two of each of the five categories are positive, uplifting things that end our prayers on a high note of praise. {Because let's face it: praying for the many hurts and wounds can really pull us down, can't it?}

For example, let's just take the letter S, because, you know, SHAFFER, and as you pray through that letter, you'll pray over singles, sexuality, suicide, strength, and shepherd. For the singles, you'll pray for those in your life who are single and need support and purpose, purity and encouragement. Amelia gives you a verse to guide your prayers, ideas of things to pray {like the words I just mentioned} and even a written prayer to further trigger your thoughts. When praying over sexuality, you'll pray for your own purity, for your family's protection, and for the community around you. You'll pray for those being sexually abused or those who are still traumatized from when it happened to them years ago. {There's more, but that gives you an idea.}

When you get to the "prayers of praise" part {still staying with the letter S}, you'll praise God for the strength He gives each day and you'll call to mind situations in the past when He offered you strength in exchange for your weakness.

As I read through the book, I was pleasantly surprised to see how Amelia's guide set my mind free to think of many people in my circle of friends {immediate and far-reaching} who fall into the categories from A to Z. And sometimes the suggestions she gave were ones I wouldn't have thought to pray over, so that was really helpful to me.

If prayer is something you're hoping to focus on in the new year, this would be a really practical guide in helping you stay on track in your prayers. There's plenty of room on the page to make notes, write names, mark answers, etc.

I also think {age appropriately of course} that this method is a great way to teach your kids how to guide their prayer lives. Obviously you'd want to be careful on some topics, but I know my mom used the alphabet method to teach me memory verses, and it was so helpful. I think teaching prayer the same way could be incredibly powerful.

I loved this book, I think it's a helpful guide, a good gift idea, easy to read, practical, and perfect for new Christians and seasoned Believers alike!

* Worthy Publishing provided a copy of this book to me at no charge. All opinions are my own!*

And Just Like That...

...I'm a bride of four years.

Four years. Can you even believe that? How is it possible that I can remember our wedding with such clarity that I feel like it just happened, and yet I also kind of feel like this life of Shafferland has always been? One of life's great mysteries, I suppose.

I asked Ryan what his favorite moment was from that day, and he said the morning, when the two of us sneaked down to the beach to watch the sunrise, read Scripture, pray, exchange gifts, and wash each other's feet.

It really was a beautiful morning. {You can read the whole thing here.} I never had a desire to follow the tradition to not see my groom on the wedding day. I knew I needed to see him to stay calm. So we met up at the beach and spent a couple of hours down there alone, setting the tone for the day with peace and joy.

My favorite moment was all the first looks.

My own first look, in my hotel room, with my two bridesmaids and my niece looking on:

The moment when I finally felt like a bride.

And then I walked through the courtyard and into a gazebo and saw Ryan for the first time as a groom.

These two moments are so meaningful to me in ways I'm not sure I can even express.

The whole day was filled with beauty. The weather was stunning, our guests seemed to really enjoy themselves, the entire day was low-key and easy to enjoy, and the only hiccup was the failure of our sound equipment, which meant several of the songs we'd planned to have in the ceremony wouldn't play.

The day looked nothing like I always thought my wedding day would, and yet it was better than I ever could have dreamed.

We made promises that day - promises we couldn't really understand, because the future was a mystery. But we knew it was a future we wanted to take on together, and take it on, we have, for the past four years.

I loved that day. I loved every part of it. I loved it that I could enjoy and remember the moments. I loved the 4 million pictures. I loved the unknown guests on the beach who pulled up lawn chairs and became part of the day. I loved the beautiful little reception under the stars. I loved becoming a Shaffer. And I have loved the last four years of being one.

Ryan Shaffer, I love you. Thank you for choosing me, for loving me, and for making every day a beautiful adventure. Let's have the best season yet!

The Decade Before

Depending on what time of day you're reading this, you can close your eyes {which makes it hard it read, I know} and imagine your two favorite Shaffers cooped up in a car trekking to Florida for a WEDDING. Because four years ago right now, we were in the middle of doing just that.

 We played games and drank extraordinarily large amounts of coffee and pulled over at a rest stop for a quick 3 hour nap before resuming our trek.

And if you're reading this in the late morning or around noon, you can imagine us stuck in traffic for three hours, with no access to a bathroom or lunch. You can imagine a bride-to-be crying because she thinks all her cakes are going to melt in the backseat when she is literally less than five miles from her destination.

If you're reading this in the afternoon, you can imagine us taking our first peek at the beach where, in one day, we would exchange vows, or you can imagine me curled up on a bed trying to sleep off the sick yuck that came over me after 24 hours in a car with little sleep.

{You can also read all those fun stories here if you'd like.}

If you're reading this in the evening, you can imagine us at our "rehearsal dinner," which was a gathering of the family and friends who had come to town, all packed into the little condo where my parents were staying, eating delicious snacks prepared by a handful of my friends back at home.

It was a busy December 1, four years ago now.

But you know what else? There was a busy decade leading up to that.

This week, I organized my collection of journals, which date back to 1993 in all their embarrassing glory. As I put them all in date order, I opened one at random and read Ryan an entry from the summer of 1994, when I finally got my driver's license.

I say "finally," because I was the one teenage weirdo who actually did not CARE to get a license. Driving petrified me. I got my license because my mother {wisely} dragged me to the branch to take the test before my test waiver ran out. {I don't know if they even still do those anymore, but back then, if you had a high enough score in driver's ed, you could skip the driving portion of the test and just take the written portion. But the waiver only lasted so long, and mine was about to expire.}

I read Ryan the journal entry about how I'd been so nervous, I was shaking, but I got my license and it would not need renewed until 1999. And by that time, I wrote, I was sure I'd be married anyway and have a new last name for the license.

1999...2012...you know. Similar.

So I journaled about the happenings of my life until 2002, and actually I kept right on "regular" journaling even then, but I added a prayer journal to the mix in 2002.

And for the next ten years, God heard more than a few prayers. This many, actually:

{Overlook the hair. I hadn't prepped for a photo opp that day.}

These books hold my prayers, my wrestling, my questions, my faith, my offerings, my failures - all as I prayed for a husband I had yet to meet.

In these pages, God began to mold me in earnest to become the woman I needed to be. He had to do a lot of bending and breaking of my stubborn will, say many no's to my begging requests, and teach me much about Who He is and who He made me to be.

These ten years, in all fairness, weren't my favorite. And I'm sure some of the words attest to that. But these years were so necessary. Such foundations were laid in this time. And the girl who took the longest.car.ride.ever.to.Florida could only do that with such confidence because of the ten years represented in these fifteen books.

December 1, 2012 was a whirlwind of a dream come true. {Not the traffic jam or the feeling sick part. But the "carriage ride" to my wedding and the beauty of being surrounded by a representation of those who loved me.} But dreams come true because of the years leading up to them when God molds His children.

Don't resist the molding. {And I remind myself of this as I say it to you.} He has His holy reasons. You can trust them to lead to beauty.