celebrating 8 years

This weekend Jared and I celebrated our anniversary. We met on August 8, 2002. We knew each for 2 weeks before Jared proposed to me and we set a date. We were married 6 months later on February 1, 2003. Nobody thought it would last, but this has been the most amazing 8 years of my life. I can not wait to see what the future holds for us. We are at a place right now that we are so happy together, sharing our life, raising our family, and working towards our dreams.

I am always teasing Jared that he doesnt have a romantic bone in his body, but this weekend he proved me so wrong. So what I discovered is he can be romantic, he just has to put a lot of thought and effort into it. The past month or so he has done just that. He surprised me by making reservations at The Grand America Hotel. I was excited, because we had never stayed there before and it was so nice! I am so mad I forgot my camera, so these pictures are kind of crappy because I took them with my phone.

This is the amazingly beautiful (and HUGE) flower arrangement just as you walk in the lobby. It smelled so good!

After we got all checked in we walked to dinner together, which was really nice. Jared surprised me again and took me to Christopher's! It was really nice and so delicious! I got what they called the King Crown, which was a NY steak topped with crab and hollandaise sauce, with asparagus and creamy mashed potatoes. It was good! Jared just got a HUGE steak (that he could only finnish halh of) and a baked potato! He was in Heaven! After dinner we walked over to the Gallivan Center and we were going to go ice skating, but it was so cold and we were both really full. So we decided to just go back to the room.

It was a nice, but very cold walk back to the room. Jared had another surprise up his sleeve that would warm us both right up. When we opened the door to the room it was dark, except for a million lit candles all around the room. There was a trail of rose peatals from the door to the bed and there were roses all over the room as well. It was gorgeous!

The hotel provided this awesome little cake for us. Just the right size for two people(this was even a surprise for Jared) So cute!

The cake was from the hotel, but the flowers were from Jared. The entire room smelled of roses and eucalyptus. It was amazing.

Jared thought of everything. There was a bucket of ice with our favorite drinks in it (being that we dont drink wine) Jared had apple beer and I had dr. pepper. We also drank out of wine glasses!!

The bed was turned down and covered in rose petals.

I had to get a picture of my awesome(rarely romantic) husband!!

He also had it prearranged for room service to deliver fondue! Yum! We had such a wonderful night together and it was so much fun! Jared truly made me feel like a princess and I absolutely appreciate the effort and thought he put into it. He is the most wonderful husband and I am so blessed to be able to call him mine!

Thank you thank you thank you to my out-of-this-world awesome parents!!! I am so glad it went so well, after the initial melt down! I know my boys are always happy at your house and wouldnt want to be anywhere else. Love you both so much!!