Cheers!

Thursday marked the start of our anniversary celebration, and it was great! We loaded up the car (pup and all) and headed to Fredericksburg. We stopped at Trattoria Lisina, an Italian restaurant at the Mandola Estates, for an AMAZING Italian lunch. That was just the start of a wonderful tour of the Hill Country's best wineries. We sipped, we ate, we took photos. It was really beautiful. We checked in to our cabin late that night and boy, that was a surprise! It was really quaint and cute, but definitely small :) Troy kept hitting his head on the doorway because they were so short! The house was built in the 1800s and is the oldest home outside of Fredericksburg. It was so quiet out there and all of us - including Tess - slept through the night.

Texas Hills Winery

Our 1800s cabin at Settler's Crossing

Becker Vineyards

The vineyard at Becker

Day 2: At Our Favorite - Grape Creek

Our stash, 7 wineries and several tastings later...

Sunday was our actual anniversary and we had a good ole lazy day, followed by a delicious dinner. We went to Perry's and ate like royalty. The food was soooo good. Then, after a few days of thawing, we pulled out the cake cutter and champagne flutes from the Big Day and cut into our wedding cake. Wow. That is all I can say - wow! It tasted just as good as it did the first time we tried it, and it brought back so many memories.

So I guess that brings me to the reason I am even able to reminisce about a lovely weekend and the taste of great wine, while eating leftovers from a fantastic steak house and thinking about digging into that yummy cake again...my husband. We have been together for over four years now and I look back at our life together after only one year of marriage and think "How lucky am I?!" It brings tears to my eyes thinking about how patient he is, how understanding and thoughtful. He is there for me in everything I do and everything I could hope to do, and I know that is rare. He is my best friend and I love him all the way to the stars and back.

We had such a picture-perfect first year of marriage, and since it is the season for giving thanks, I realize I have so much to be thankful for in the short time since we said "I do." We have spent several festive 'first' holidays with our wonderful families, became 'Aunt' and 'Uncle' to a precious baby boy, bought a beautiful new home together, took on some interesting DIY projects, went on a ski trip, some beach trips, and quite a few road trips, celebrated with friends as they bought new houses, got engaged, or celebrated a marriage; we prayed hard for family as they healed from an injury or illness, tried new things, and moved to new places; we learned a lot about others, and even more about ourselves, found some new friends and found ourselves growing apart from others. We realized more than ever, the gift of having a job (even if it isn't perfect!), trying new things, and staying hopeful. We found happiness in the small things - drinking wine with friends on the back porch, listening to the crickets, the smell of good BBQ, and the feeling of puppy kisses on your face. Life is full of blessings, and opportunities to find blessings through the not-so-good stuff. It takes my breath away, the blessings in our life.

Happy anniversary Love. Here's to 100 more...