Our First Anniversary

We just celebrated our first anniversary this past weekend.  I can’t believe how fast it went!  I feel like I blinked maybe once… and here we are a few days into year two.  We have had such a blast together.  We have learned lots about each other, ourselves, and how to make our marriage better.  All the experiences we have had this past year, whether good or bad, have helped us grow and love each other even more.  We have gone through some significantly difficult struggles since we have been married, but I am no less than 110% grateful for each of these struggles.  It has helped us learn how to work through things together and to keep our Heavenly Father at the forefront of our lives.  He truly has been the key to our success in all things, and I know that as we continue to seek Him in our marriage, it will only improve.

I can honestly say that I have grown up so much more than I thought possible in one year.  Marriage certainly has a way of throwing every single responsibility and stress on a young couple.  I remember telling my mom that it was weird having to think about buying toilet paper, PAM, and printer ink.  Add that to rent, insurance, gas, groceries, and all those other things you need to live day-to-day, and it’s a great recipe for a fantastic lesson on being a “grown-up”.  I don’t feel like I was necessarily thrown into being responsible for myself since I was away at school in Hawaii for a year before we were married.  However, being responsible for yourself as a college student doesn’t even begin to touch being responsible for you and your spouse as a married couple.  I am grateful that Grant is so financially minded and frugal, because he has taught me so much about budgeting and finance that I never knew before.  Our paycheck-to-paycheck income has especially forced me to be wise with our money and diligent with our budgeting.  I have loved every minute of it, and I certainly feel like I am so much more prepared for any financial situation that may come in our future. 

Thought I would share how we celebrated our first anniversary.  We had such a wonderful day!  Since our actual anniversary fell on Sunday, we celebrated on Saturday.  We woke up, had some pancakes, and got ready for the day.  We decided that we wanted to start a tradition of visiting a new temple and doing sealings every year for our anniversary.  So, we drove down to the Idaho Falls Temple, which we had never been to before.  It was a super busy day there with lots of weddings, so we were there for a while.  It was nice to just sit in the temple and have some time to reflect.  After the temple, we went to Olive Garden for lunch.  We both had soup, salad, and breadsticks.  Can’t go wrong with that!  After lunch, we changed out of our church clothes and begin to walk around in Idaho Falls.  There were street fairs all along the Snake River and downtown Idaho Falls.  We explored the booths, and I couldn’t help but tell Grant that I felt like that is what couples do on their 40^th anniversary or something. It was certainly low-key, but we had so much fun just walking hand-in-hand. 

 Idaho Falls Temple

We had decided that we wanted to try our hand at geocaching, so we downloaded a free app that includes directions and hints to find a cache.  The first one took us to this super cute island in Idaho Falls that we explored for a while.  I could have stayed there all day.  We couldn’t find the cache, and decided to try another one since we weren’t quite sure what we were looking for.  The second one took us back to the temple, where Grant climbed under a tree to find the cache!  It was seriously so exciting!  We signed the list inside with the date and our names and, of course, snapped a couple pictures.  With that, we hopped back in the car and headed home for a nap before dinner.

 Grant found the cache!

 Signing our names on the list

I decided that I would make dinner for our anniversary to save a few bucks.  On Saturday night, I made teriyaki chicken, one of Grant’s favorite dinners.  After we ate, we headed to the dollar theater here in Rexburg to watch Now You See Me.  We haven’t gone to a movie together since our first week here in Rexburg back in January, so we definitely enjoyed it.  It really was the perfect, relaxing day that I think we both really needed!

Sunday was kind of just like any other Sunday, besides the fact that we exchanged anniversary gifts.  I made Grant a “52 Things I Love About You” deck of cards.  He had compiled a folder of pictures, one for each month of our first year of marriage.  He said he was going to make a calendar.  We ended up going to Porter’s, a craft store in town, together this week.  We got a few things we needed and made the calendar board together.  It was a lot of fun.  One of the cards in the deck I made Grant says, “You help me with my crafts”.  I really do love that about him.  He helps me paint, sand, glue, measure, hang-up, or anything else I ask for help with.  This was really the best gift ever… he came up with a craft idea and then let me make it however I wanted.  The best part was that he helped me with it. 

Yes, my hubby and I made this!

After church on Sunday, I made steak, asparagus, and, Grant’s request, French fries for dinner.  We finished it off with one of our favorite desserts, Strawberry Delight. 

My favorite part of our anniversary??  When Grant told me to close my eyes, walked me to the kitchen, hit play, and started dancing with me to our wedding song.  I cried… a lot!  I am a sucker for slow dancing and Grant HATES it, so it was so sweet for him to do that for me.  It was the best ending to a wonderful weekend. 

I truly am so blessed to have Grant to share my life with.  He is such an amazing person, and someone who I try to be more like every day.  He is selfless and caring, and he is the kind of husband every girl dreams of having.  I am so excited to see what adventures unfold for us in this next year and all the years to come.