5 year Anniversary!

Our fifth wedding anniversary was this past Friday (the 17th.) Can you believe that Cliff and I have been married for 5 years? Me neither! Well sometimes I can. We have been through a lot together! Moves, international moves, deployments, pregnancy, children, life threatening illness, family crisis, earthquakes, evacuations, buying our first home, etc... I think what I am most proud of, though, is all of the changes we have weathered in each other. We have grown individually these past years, but we have also GROWN TOGETHER. We have been through ups and downs, good times and bad times, and through it all we have learned more about each other and I for one have grown to love Cliff even more. I feel like every trial we overcome, every obstacle we triumph over, every victory we have is all the sweeter because we win together. Marriage is tough. You HAVE to be able to say you are sorry and even more importantly, you have to forgive. I thought I could never love Cliff more than the day that I married him, but that is so wrong. That was just the beginning and things have gotten so much more exciting! since that wonderful day.
That day I began a journey with my partner. My teammate. My best friend. We have laughed and learned together. We have cried and prayed together. We have come to DEPEND on each other.

Cliff got me tulips to change things up this year. Very seasonally appropriate and beautiful! I have always loved getting flowers from him. We got snow two days after our anniversary and it was nice to have the tulips to remind me that spring is just around the corner...
We also went out to eat Friday night! A date! What a novelty! Now that Ivy is sleeping in her own room it should be easier for us to get out more. It was so hard to find sitters when Ivy was in the throes of her colic. No one could handle her except my mother - and she lives in Atlanta. We left the girls with a whole FAMILY back in November thinking surely four people could handle her and she screamed the entire time. Oh well. We know that dates are on the horizon. Time and a season and all that jazz. Anyway, we went to an exquisite restaurant right here in Crozet, (actually Ivy,) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
I meant to take more pictures of the food and of ourselves, but what can I say? I was just caught up in the evening and the fact that we were OUT!! We went to "Duners," a place we had been trying to visit for months. There is always a wait and we could never steal away. We finally remedied that by my dear friend's generous offer to babysit with her daughter. We arrived at the restaurant just after 5 and while the place was busy we were still able to get a table before the mad rush! Cliff and I split a couple of appetizers, (fried oysters with red pepper aoli, and cremini, goat cheese and roasted tomato flat bread with arugula pesto and balsamic reduction,) and then we split the local trout for dinner. YUM! The foodies in both of us we well satisfied. We will be returning to Duners again!
Afterwards we drove to Charlottesville to try and catch a movie, but we were too late to see what we wanted to see. We opted to go shopping sans kids instead and just chatted and shopped and held hands and enjoyed each others' company. It's the simple things :)

Here is to another wonderful year with my sweetie and eternity to follow!!