Celebrating Our 1 Year!

Ian and I celebrated our one year anniversary on August 17th!! Can you believe it's already been a year? We can hardly believe it.

To celebrate, we decided to stay fairly close to home and kick it in Dallas. We thought a weekend get-a-way would be perfect and it was a short drive (we're a little tired of road trips!) which was nice.

On Friday morning, Ian surprised me with this beautiful bouquet :) He knows how much I love flowers. The picture is blurry, but it was the only one I got!

Friday afternoon, we headed to Dallas to go to a Death Cab for Cutie and Iron & Wine concert. As we were driving there, the area became really rundown. There were hardly any stores and it was sketchy. We wanted to grab a bite to eat before the concert, but there were only two choices: McDonald's or Burger King! haha I hate fast food, but we had no choice. So we sat in our car eating McDonald's (a little scared of our surroundings; there were three cop cars right next door). Romantic dinner, right? We laughed about it, even though it wasn't our idea of a nice anniversary dinner.

We got to the concert and it was outdoors, so it was absolutely boiling outside! But we managed to stay fairly cool thanks to some giant fans. The concert was so much fun!! And we discovered a new band that we like: the Oh Hellos. I love their sound! They're kind of similar to Mumford & Sons.

 

After the concert, we checked into our cute hotel called the Le Meridian near the Galleria. It was really nice and we got a great deal on it!

Saturday morning we headed to the Dallas Arboretum which was so beautiful! It was definitely a romantic spot. Even though we got there in the morning it was still hot as heck! But it was worth all the sweat. Here is a video we took of this lovely tunnel of trees, which was our favorite part:

                         Here are some other pictures Ian took of our favorite flowers and plants:

                      

 

Can you see why Ian took me here? It is breathtaking!



















After exploring this "secret garden"  we went to the Dallas World Aquarium. We've been to a few different aquariums in the Bay Area, but I have to say the Dallas one is the best one I've seen yet! It has exotic animals and fish from around the world. What was neat, is that this aquarium is in the middle of the city with all these skyscrapers, and then there was this jungle like place that made you feel like you were in the Amazon or somewhere tropical! So cool.

 
 Here are some of the highlights of what we saw:

  

   

After exploring the aquarium, of course shopping was a must. Dallas has lots of great malls! We went to Grapevine Mills and they had some good outlet stores like The Loft. Ian bought me a little something :)

On Sunday I gave Ian the gift I've been working on with my very talented friend Morgan Urness! She is an amazing graphic designer and helped me make a gift that was special and one-of-a-kind! There are some minor errors on this png  because I was too lazy to update my newest, error-free version. Sad I know, but you get the idea! :) 

That pretty much sums up our romantic weekend! Our first year has been a great one and I look forward to the years ahead with my best friend. I am truly blessed to have a husband like Ian. He is too good to me :) Happy Anniversary honey!

 
   

Reunion in Washington

We've finished another year at BYU-Idaho. Ian is officially done with his classes! Both of us just have an internship to complete before we both graduate in April!

After our semester ended, we headed to Washington for an Andersen family reunion in Washington!

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I had to write about our time there, because it was lovely. Being in nature is something we needed after the stressful semester. I read this book on the way to the reunion. It was an 11-hour drive so reading was a good way to pass the time. And it's a pretty amazing story of a woman who hikes the Pacific Crest Trail all by herself!

We stayed at Ensign Ranch in Cle Elum, which was absolutely beautiful! I was able to meet all of Ian's dad's family. There were nearly 200 Andersens there! Everyone was so nice and welcoming. They made me feel right at home. They are a fun bunch of people and I can see where Ian gets his humor and charm :)

We did some fun things at the ranch. There was a nice lake where we went canoeing.

There was also a big water slide where we went tubing. It was a blast. Ian was having so much fun, that he popped his shoulder out of place! There was a really bumpy part and he flew off his tube and landed wrong on his bad shoulder. It freaked me out!! I've never seen it out of place before. Thankfully it went back to normal and it didn't stop us from going on the slide some more :)

We enjoyed a day of horseback riding. Ian's horse was an angel but my horse kept trying to eat the plants so he'd stop and hold up the line! haha

One of my favorite things we did was star gazing. It's so peaceful to just lay there looking up at the stars and just talk. Nothing beats star gazing in the middle of the woods! We could see the Milky Way and a ton of shooting stars and satellites! We had a competition to see who could spot the most satellites. Let's just say, Ian has a good eye :)

All the kids there loved Ian because he made a campfire for all of us to roast s'mores! We even discovered they make SQUARE marshmallows. Can't believe I didn't know about this before. haha

After the weekend, I didn't want to leave! I had never been to Washington, and by that time I was already won over.

I would love to go back to Ensign Ranch someday and take our kids there. It was a lovely place :)

P.S. It was also Suzi's birthday when we got there (Ian's younger sister) and so I made her this gift to decorate their apartment...I love crafting!