1st Anniversary

Wow, one year already?!? It does not seem like it was a little over a year ago Jon and I got married, yet when I think back on all the fun things we did this year it makes sense. To celebrate our one year we decided to finally use a wedding present from one of Jon's uncles which was a weekend to one of his timeshares. We picked Pinetop as our location and the planning began!

The Friday before I went to my lab in the morning ate a quick dollar lunch and headed off to home to pack up for the trip in hopes of leaving by 2. I got home with the car and Jon left to fill it up with oil and change the spark plugs. He said he'd be back in 20 minutes tops and left while I packed up my clothes and such for the weekend and then all the food. I had planned out all the meals and was very excited to make them all! Who needs culinary school when you have the internet to find fun recipes and a husband to cook for? =P So I had finished packing everything up and double checked to make sure I didn't forget anything and Jon still wasn't home, it had been half an hour so I expected him home any minute and waited anxiously for him to come....... finally half an hour later I heard him come up the apartment steps and knock on the door. I opened the door about to ask what had taken so long to find Jon holding a dozen roses and something I had longed for for years.... A 1LB REESES!!!! Really two half pounds to make it the typical two Reeses per package, but still!!!! I was sooooooo excited to see them in their massive peanut butter chocolatey goodness and eat them right there! I have no idea where he found them but it was perfect! And the roses were so pretty, speckled and gorgeous smelling! So gorgeous smelling I held them in my lap the whole time I drove to Gilbert so we could grab a few things from his parents house.

We finally made it up to Pinetop around 9:30, checked in and got settled in our room. It was such a cozy place! A fire place, ipod speakers to play music and a queen sized bed that fell out of the living room wall to snuggle on with hot chocolate while watching the fire. We were both exhausted though and soon fell asleep before we could move to the real bed in the bedroom. Some point in the early morning Jon had woken up to go to the bathroom and then came and woke me up telling me to look out the window. I crawled out of bed and opened the blinds to see snow!!! The ground and trees were covered in a layer of white fluffy snow! In fact it was snowing at that very moment! I was so excited I couldn't sleep much longer but had to get out and explore the winter wonderland outside. Here is some of what I found:

 This is from outside our window

 Outside on the porch

 A site I never thought I'd ever see, our car COVERED in snow!

These were some sweet icicles we found later on in the day

After my adventures I hurried inside to the warmth to make lemon poppy seed pancakes with blackberries and hot chocolate for breakfast. Once we had filled ourselves we drove out to see Ft. Apache and satisfy Jon's history obsession. It was cool to read about and see the different houses people stayed in but you could only go inside one house and then the rest was just walking around and reading plaques. I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been freezing cold and super windy outside. We also stopped by the cemetery and it was interesting to read all the names and dates and wonder how their lives were like. There were a lot of war veterans so I felt it was appropriate to remind us of remember those who served/serve our country for Veterans Day. We were finally done being outside in the freezing cold and headed back to town.

 A creek we stopped by along the way

When we got back we looked around for a good place to eat dinner and ended up going to a place called Darbie's Cafe where we had some yummy fried zucchini and shared a fancy burger and panini. We had wanted to get dessert but were WAY to full afterwards, it was delicious food though! On our way home we stopped by a redbox and got War Horse to snuggle in the couch by the fire with some sparkling cider Jon surprised me with and watch. The movie was good but man it had some rough parts to get through, even for Jon! Since we'd had time to let our stomach's settle it was time to break open the giant Reeses!!!

It was just as delectable as it looks!!! I ate one quarter and immediately wanted another so I did even though it was like 1000 calories no joke. I felt fat in thinking I could have eaten another, but after a couple minutes the richness definitely set in and I knew I couldn't eat any more, but boy was that half amazing! 

Sunday our actual anniversary I attempted to make Jon's favorite breakfast, french toast, but haven't had much practice with it since my mom never made it growing up. They were okay but kind of soggy in the middle so I'm going to have to keep practicing those. Jon was a sweetheart and still ate them without complaint. At breakfast I also gave Jon my anniversary gift to him that I had worked on the week before which was an exploding box full of pictures from the year (here is the site I used to make it, its pretty easy actually! And a huge thanks to Melanie for letting me come and borrow her tools and time!).

We then packed avacado chicken salad sandwiches and headed off to his grandma's house in St. Johns to visit since we wouldn't be coming up for Thanksgiving with Jon's family. It was a beautiful scenic ride through the mountains and a great visit with her and her brother. She even had apples on her apple tree for the first time in years that we got to pick and take home. They are really tiny, but so sweet and crunchy I love them! We got to hear some fun stories from his grandma and then headed home when the sun started to set. 

We came home to delicious smelling chicken stew to which I added cornbread dumplings on top to cook as we went outside to try and build a snowman. The snow was still to fluffy though so it was only good for snow angel making and snow dusting each other. We couldn't play too long though because we hadn't packed any gloves and our hands were hurting after only a couple minutes but it was still fun. We warmed up with some hot chocolate and the fire and then had our stew with some more sparkling cider. Once again we were too full for dessert so we saved our wedding cheesecake for after the Muppet movie, which was super cute by the way! A great kid/family movie, we were laughing throughout so highly recommend it!

Then came the moment I was really excited for, eating our wedding cheesecake! Jon's dad didn't think it'd be any good after a year and that made Jon nervous to try it but it smelled so good I couldn't wait to dig in. We both had a bit at the same time and it was sooooo good!!! Once again Melanie for making it and keeping it in your freezer the whole year. Now I know why you were so tempted to eat it all the time. It was the perfect anniversary! I could never get tired of snuggling by a warm fire and looking at the snow outside. We ended up falling asleep in the queen bed again, don't think we ever actually slept in the real bed, I mean why would you when you can sleep by a fire???

It was such a great, relaxing weekend to just be with Jon and not have to think about school or anything but him! I did not want to go back to real life on Monday, but we did a good job distracting ourselves and didn't get home to Tucson until 10 that night. Just in time for Jon to start his four day graveyard shift.... a nice shock back to reality. Oh well, it was a great weekend and anniversary and he won't have to work those shifts much longer and soon have him by me to sleep with every night. It has been such a wonderful first year together. I'm so grateful to have him in my life and can't wait for what adventures will befall us this next year!