Paper Anniversary



This weekend we celebrated our paper anniversary. It is said that the paper anniversary symbolizes the delicate nature of a young marriage, as well as the modest beginnings of a new couple. I love old traditions and we both stuck with the paper theme for our gifts for each other.

My in-laws loves gifted us the use of their Napa house for the weekend. We are so lucky to have a family home in a place like Napa. Visiting Napa is on so many people's bucket lists, and people spend thousands of dollars to vacation to this place. Our second home. It's important to keep that in mind and not take such a beautiful blessing for granted.

We drove up after work on Friday and found the kitchen decorated with a banner and a bottle of champs in the fridge. God love my sweet in-laws. Seriously. They are so cute.

Nick made a couple pizzas and we spent the night relaxing and reminiscing. I found out Friday night that we would be waking up at 5:00 AM Saturday morning to go on a hot air balloon!

 

We woke up early Saturday to the sound of the pouring rain. A call to the balloon company confirmed that we would not, in fact be able to go that day. We went back to bed and woke up to more rain. We sat by the fire and talked about our wedding morning and what a complete disaster it would have been to have had rain that day. Our entire wedding was outside except for the bar and dance floor. We seriously would have been screwed if it had rained and I couldn't help but think about all of the poor brides that no doubt had weddings happening in the valley that day. We ended up going downtown to get a coffee at Oxbow, which was packed because of the rain. We left pretty quickly and went to a brewery to have a quick lunch and watch the A's game.{by the way... Wooooooooo!!! We won the West!! See you at the playoffs!}

 

Saturday night we went to one of my all time favorite restaurants, Michael Chiarello's, Bottega in Yountville. Dinner was absolutely to die for. We had frozen wedding cake to eat at home so we skipped desert, but loved these cute little peanut butter chocolates our server brought.

 

 

Sunday morning we woke up {at 5 AM} to go get on the balloon. This was an experience that I wish everyone could have at least once in their lives. Watching the sunrise from 3,000 feet above the vineyards was just breath taking. The balloon company that we went with launches the earliest and from the furthest North so we got to see all of the other balloons filling up and launching. At one point there were 16 other balloons in the air. Amazing.

 

We got married right on that golf course! To the left of the pond you can see a section of wedding chairs set up for another wedding.

 

Sunday was our actual anniversary and we flew directly over the golf course where we got married. Having to postpone the ride actually worked out better than we could have planned!

 

By the time we were done it was only 8:30 so we went to breakfast and then back home to watch our wedding video, do our gifts, and definitely take a nap. For my gift I made a shadow box frame with the lyrics from our wedding song. Nick gave me an empty journal with a message in it, promising to fill the journal with love letters and notes to me. I honestly couldn't think of a more perfect gift. This man just melts my heart.

 

 

My heart just feels so full of love after this weekend.