Every year me and the hubs make an intentional attempt to celebrate our anniversary. We usually go on a trip with just the two of us to have some alone time and enjoy the memories of another year of marriage. This was our 10 year milestone and though it had been a pretty challenging year up to the point we got to vacation, it didn’t stop us one bit. Care to hear all about it?

So let me back up and give the full picture. Our celebration actually started the weekend before our trip. Hubs had planned us a date night (very usual of him) so I busied myself that evening getting all cute for our dinner.

He had been pretty secretive about the location, but he told me I could do a cute dress. I let down my wash n go and threw on my cozy Zara crochet midi. Once we pull up to the spot, I had a pretty good idea of where we were heading. There’s a place called The Rim that we’ve enjoyed before so I was excited to possibly be coming back.

Just like I guessed, that’s where we were eating. We walk in and I’m so focused on looking ahead of me, I don’t see the crowd of people to my left. I hear a loud “SURPRISE!” and to my surprise it’s a room full of friends and family who came to our wedding, were in our wedding, or supported our marriage through the years!

I was so shocked! My bodies only response was to start crying. My aunt and uncle flew all the way from out of town to be there and I just lost it 😭😭😭. My hubby is not a planner by any means so for him to go through all of this to surprise me was a whole thing. Not only that, he had been working on it for two months!

What made it such a big deal for me is that I had written off the 10 year anniversary party because it didn’t seem like it was going to happen at all. It kept being on again off again so finally I just threw in the towel and let it be off and stay off. I stopped trying to make it happen and just accepted that next year we could try to do something.

Not only that, but it just felt like Satan had really been coming at us this year. Having to adjust to a new way of operating in our marriage, putting up new boundaries to protect our marriage, dealing with back to back milestone moments (like my oldest starting school and me joining the PTO); it’s been a lot. So to see the overwhelming outpouring of love and support from those who know us has been phenomenal! I just couldn’t say enough…it felt like relief. It felt like victory!

But that’s not all. After dinner, hubs said we were heading to Hotel Dryce for some drinks with our friend couple that we met years ago at City Life Church. Well, when we got there I’m immediately met with not just them, but yet ANOTHER surprise party of my best friends from childhood, work, and a good chunk of our current church family!

He did it again! I couldn’t believe he had shocked me twice in one evening! It was so nice to see everyone. So many congratulations and encouragement from people we’ve been mentored by and truly cared for. Words cannot express.

We celebrated the night away and kicked off 10 years in the best way. I’m so blessed and the fact that hubs cared about surprising me so much that he would plan all this in secret just warms my little heart. I thank God for him truly.

This was just part one of our anniversary celebration. Check out part two which gets into our Las Vegas adventures 👀