Celebrating The Fourth Anniversary

See what I did there? If our 4th wedding anniversary were a movie sequel I am sure that is how the title would be treated on the movie posters (and yes, it would be dubbed a blatant rip off of Scream 4). Anyways, as is the tradition, we are dropping in with our little rundown about how we celebrated four years of marriage last Thursday (see our three year anniversary post here and our two & one year anniversary post here). This year it kicked off, as most days do, with breakfast.

I made this particular breakfast (Strawberry-Orange Stuffed French Toast with Raspberry Butter) as an homage to our so-good-we-took-my-picture-with-it (here) go-to meal during our Alaskan honeymoon. Of course, what I lacked in food presentation (do I get points for my strawberry hearts?) I made up for in flowers in our wedding colors.

We agreed not to do gifts this year (our new laundry project was going to be a joint gift to ourselves), but I broke the rules when I spotted a bunch of bee-themed stationery from Smock Paper. Since Sherry’s an epic list maker and our wedding invite had bees on it, I simply could not stop myself from shelling out my credit card digits for a few items. And yes, Smock Paper is a sponsor of ours but no, they did not have any part in me buying these. They are likely finding out about my purchase via this post, in fact.

They sadly did not have any bee themed big sticky pads, but I got one in the closest color scheme since I knew Sherry was low on office notepads (small sticky notes went unused in our junk drawer, but these big folks are already getting a workout). We appreciate how eco-conscious these wares are in general, but we particularly enjoyed this plain request printed on the bottom: use this to do good.

What I spent in dollars, Sherry matched in thoughtfulness – writing a homemade card listing thirty things she, Clara, and Burger enjoy about me (each of them got ten). I told you, the girl loves lists. And it sure beat the “Enjoy, John” in my card. Oops.

But the day was not about exchanging paper products. It was about doing lively stuff together. So after working the morning away, we ducked out for lunch at one of our go-to casual spots: Sticks Kebob Shop. Yum. And we had a $10 off Groupon for it too. Aw, low-cost lovebirds. Or should I say cheep? (Bird joke for the win).

From there we popped over to a local art place called Crossroad Art Center, which we have heard plenty about but never managed to visit in five years of being Richmonders. It is in short a massive gallery featuring of plenty of local artists, though sadly we could not take pictures inside for ya. One of our go-tos was Morgan E. McKinney, but we did not find anything in our current price range. Someday.

We did get giddy over these $4 paintings-turned-notecards by Sherri Conley that we thought (once framed with big generous mats) would make for a strong little “zen moment” in our master bathroom. So we took them home.

How could we pass up buying something that said “I Enjoy You” on our anniversary? And the photographer’s name is Sherri, so that counts for something too, right? Sherry and I were in fact standing in distinct areas of her booth and each said “this is sweet” at the same time. We reconvened to see what each other had found and we were both holding the I Enjoy You airplane card.

From there it was time to take our annual corny anniversary photo. we have a little tradition of snapping (and later framing) a family pic each year on 7/7…

… and this year certainly proved the hardest. Apparently a 14 month old cannot grasp the concept of “hey, look at the beeping black thing on the funny three-legged stick… and oh yeah, smile while you are at it.” Guess we did not know the blessing we got last year when her 8-week old self slept through the whole thing. But we did eventually manage to get this one. Stacked heads = maximum cheesiness.

 

Apparently we pressed our luck by trying to get Burger in the picture. This was our most successful attempt. Hey, at least the adults are looking!

 

Then we headed off to grab our anniversary photobooth picture (more on that tradition here). The place we consistently go (New York Deli here in Richmond) has an authentic 50-year-old booth that in fact develops film strips (not digital prints, like a lot of the others out there). Sadly the booth was having an off day, so the results were especially smeary (note the fourth frame in particular). We were having a bit of an off moment too, apparently. Yes, Clara cried the whole first strip.

Well, that was in fact the second strip because we did not even keep the first one. During our first attempt the thing began going off prematurely with only me in the booth, so half of the strip is me looking perplexed and calling for Sherry to hurry inside with the bean. But we got some glad squeals during the third attempt from Clara. Good nuff.

After some in-the-car journal tending (what did people do before iPhones?) it was dinner time.

We ate at Brio Tuscan Grille because it was the site of our rehearsal dinner back in 2007 and, well, we hadn’t been back since celebrating our second anniversary. Meaning it was this little lady’s first trip.

Is it simply us or is there something hilarious about a sippy cup, some Goldfish crackers, and a Dr. Seuss book on a carrera marble table? Thankfully those magic items (plus her quite own pasta meal) were sufficient to keep Beansie glad and entertained – even after a long day of celebrating.

And as if we hadn’t shoved in sufficient anniversary bid-ness already, Sherry followed up this July 7th simply like she did four years ago after our wedding: by chopping off a bunch of her hair (you can in fact see her with short hair waay back in the 2007 archives here).

Yep, say “goodbye” to the honorary fifth member of the YHL team: Sherry’s ponytail.

Though I’d say it is a fond farewell, since I think my lady looks mighty sexy this way. Note that she was too shy to pose for photos by me, so she snuck off and took pictures in the mirror because “I made her nervous.” Aw yeah, four years later, I still got it.

Oh and Sherry wants me to add that all is right with the world – she can still pull her hair back into a compact pony when we paint. How would she know? Let us simply say we are working on the laundry room rightthissecond. More details tomorrow.

Anyway, as much lively as we had this seven-seven, we must admit that our minds have already kinda skipped ahead to next year’s big five year anniversary. In honor of our Alaskan honeymoon, we thought it’d be ideal to celebrate the big 0-5 by going to Hawaii (since it is sort of Alaska’s non-contiguous partner in crime). We have not truly planned much at all, but we figure if we keep saying it out loud it’ll force us to in fact make it happen next year. Since we have not in fact flown anywhere on vacation since our honeymoon in 2007. Better make it happen.