Labor Day

Labor Day is one of my favorite holidays. I mean I never complain about having a day off from work, especially when my birthday is involved. College football also kicks off around that time which makes me so happy. But, the main reason this holiday is so special to me is that I usually get to spend it with my family celebrating my mom and my birthdays! 

This year we rented a condo in Gulf Shores for the weekend and we had a blast! Words cannot describe how perfect the weather was. We did absolutely nothing for 3 days and it was pure bliss!

My sweet sister-in-law took some pictures on Sunday night at our birthday dinner celebration

The best birthday present ever was having my whole family together! My brother and sister-in-law drove down after the Auburn game on Saturday night and turned around on Monday and drove back to Nashville. It truly meant so much to have them there! I feel so loved and am so blessed to have such a great support system.    

Happy Anniversary

We actually started our celebration a little early. We were able to spend 5 days in WaterColor back in May. It was absolutely perfect and everything we had hoped it would be-- relaxing and fun. WaterColor is really special to us because that is where we took our engagement pictures last year. Every year since we have been dating (2006), we have visited the WaterColor/Seaside area....but this was my first time (Ben's second) to actually stay in a WaterColor home and I loved it. We both agree it's our favorite place to go! We are looking forward to vacationing there for many years to come. Here are some pictures of the adorable house we rented.

After leaving WaterColor, we headed over to Point Clear to stay at The Grand Hotel. This is where we stayed on our wedding night, so it was really fun to go back and reminisce. We even ate dinner at Felix's Fish Camp which is where had dinner the Sunday night before flying out to St. Thomas on Monday.

So, needless to say, this past weekend (our actual anniversary) was pretty low-key. We celebrated on Friday night by enjoying a delicious meal on our china and eating year-old wedding cake. Ben grilled steaks and I prepared the salad and twice baked potatoes (thanks to Fresh Market). It was perfect! Oh, and the wedding cake was surprisingly not that bad...it still had a great flavor, just a little dry :)

The rest of our weekend was spent in Birmingham seeing friends and family. We attended a wedding of a good family friend of mine. The ceremony was at Reid Chapel and was absolutely beautiful. My parents came in town for the event, so we got to see them 2 weekends in a row! We left the reception early to go to a wedding shower for one of Ben's old co-workers and good friends. Steve was so sweet and came to our wedding by himself as he was living in Atlanta at the time. We are looking forward to his upcoming wedding in August as I absolutely adore his bride-to-be. We ended the weekend with lunch on Sunday with some dear friends of ours, Charlie & Hollie. I can't tell you how blessed we feel to be surrounded by such amazing friends and family.

But the best part of my weekend (besides celebrating 1 year of marriage) was getting to see my sweet friend Sarah who lives in Atlanta now. It is such a small world because Sarah's husband is good friends with Steve also......so they came in town for the shower! I had been looking forward to seeing her for weeks and the visit did not disappoint! I don't think we stopped talking the entire 2 hours. Ben said we weren't even making words because we were talking so fast. Sarah is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of friend. She has been such a blessing in my life! I keep praying that one day we will live in the same city again....but until then thank goodness for gmail and lots of "free" time at work. Miss you Sarah!

We have another wedding this weekend......this makes 3 weekends in a row! Do you think it's wedding season?!