One Year Later

Ok ok so this blog is being posted one year and almost two months later. I think you all understand, though, that when the school year hits life picks up speed and the fun stuff like blogging is pushed to the way side. Our paper (first) anniversary, however, is worth backtracking a little for.

For those of you who don't know the first anniversary is traditionally the "paper anniversary" because you are poor. The couple is to buy, make, or incorporate a paper aspect to their gift. To honor tradition (and our status as poor seminary students) we decided to go with it.

I (Laura) got Steve a copy of our song's sheet music. We're still trying to get the hang of this guitar thing. I hope one day (maybe by our 10th anniversary) we can play it!

Steve's gift was a series of cards that he gave out through out the day. Each one was accompanied by a surprise of where we were to go next.

 The first surprise was that we were going to Monterey California. It is about a hour and a half drive from where we live. On the way we passed the famous garlic festival. Despite my wanting to check it out Steve felt we had better things lined up. haha. Maybe we'll hit up the garlic festival next year.

After we arrived I got my next card and surprise number two that we would be eating at an awesome seafood restaurant on the water. Our table over looked the beach and was so beautiful! The food was really good too!

We decided to take a picture of one  year's worth of wear and tear on our rings.

 At the end of lunch I got my last card and final surprise that we were going on a whale watching tour! I was super surprised and we were both excited. We had a little time to kill so we walked back down the beach towards the pier and window shopped.

Just before our tour started the sun came out! It was perfect timing! This is a picture of the boat that took us an hour out to sea.

We decided to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine and views. With a little hot chocolate we were able to stand the cold. About an  hour into the trip we started to get skeptical. Were we going to be in the 1% of people who didn't see something on this trip? Then out of no where...



There were over 15 whales all around us. They told us it was pretty unusual to see them in groups like that. They were happy to show off for by us coming out of the water which was really fun. One came right up to our boat but of course I was not ready with the camera so this is a sampling of what we got.



Once back to shore we finished our day with a trip to Buba Gump Shrimp for dinner. We chose it because we went to our first Buba Gump Shrimp restaurant on our honeymoon. We learned that Monterey is the original Buba Gump!

We didn't get around to the final tradition of first year anniversary's until the day after our one year mark... The eating of the year old cake. It was quite an adventure getting this cake to us. As most of you know we were married in Mississippi and now we live in California. We planned on hand carrying it back earlier this summer when we visited home but forgot it in the freezer. Good thing too because we got stuck overnight at the airport and it would have been ruined by the time we got home. So my mom and grandma figured out how to overnight it to us and it made the trip just fin.

While I had to do some strong convincing for Steve to give it a try we decided that it was pretty good. We, however, did not to keep it to try again the next year and tossed the leftovers in the trash.