Our First Anniversary ♥

It's been over a year now since our wedding - and it already feels like forever ago, but celebrating our first anniversary was such a good time, we really felt close to our wedding day again. Since November and December are busy months at work for AJ, he couldn't take any time off, so we had to do a quick, nearby getaway, so we chose to go to Palm Springs for the weekend.

We drove out there on Friday and got in late, but still with enough time to take some shots and hang out in the spa and then have an 80s dance party in the room (translation: AJ laid on the bed picking out some sick 80s songs and I did interpretive dances to them around the hotel room).

I did plenty of things during the weekend to help re-incorporate the whole feel of the wedding to our weekend. I brought my bachelorette party veil to wear around the resort and in the pool, and I had my fur wrap from my wedding day to wear out at night and my Mrs getting-ready robe, both of which I brought on my bridal hanger, and also brought my white honeymoon dress to wear out for our fancy dinner. And then of course we had our wedding cake and first year jar to look forward to too, so it still felt very reminiscent of our wedding.

Anyway, after a Belgian brunch on Saturday morning, we decided to drive out to Painted Canyon to hike for a bit. It really was beautiful, and it's crazy to think how this really isn't all that far from "civilization" in the form of Riverside city and Orange County.

Driving in

Inside the canyon

Mid song-singing

AJ hiked up to some midway cliff

Me asking when he's planning on coming
down from that cliff

Sippin tall boys - we had already finished our
buzz ballz LOL

Since we were kinda close to Salton Sea, and neither of us had ever went, we decided to make the small trek out there to see it. It was weird! On this day, the lake was so misty and placid, it blended in to the sky. The shore is weird cushiony silt mud and covered with crushed shells. Oh, and it smells disgusting. But, we finally saw it...!

After we got back, we took power naps before getting ready to go out to eat. We found a place on a nice Christmasy street for dinner

I took one photo, then told him he needed to smile. Afterwards, I told him it was like those dog photos before and after someone tells them they're a good boy LOL

After dinner we got to go back to our wedding cake! Marisa's creation last a year and some flowers and our cake topper were even frozen in there with it. Although the frosting got smushed, the cake was still really good! We had funfetti (mmmm) and it still held up no problem. It was a perfect dessert.

Sunday morning was our actual anniversary, and this was the money load. This was what I had been looking forward to! AJ made coffee, and together with Bud Lights, we had a breakfast of leftover pizza and wedding cake, exchanged gifts, and then opened up our 1 year wedding jar! Not many people knew about these jars (those DJs sucked!) but no matter, we still had some pearls of wisdom and funny notes to look at. Adam asked us to text him on the day to know how frozen year-old wedding cake tastes, so we did, and included this illustration for him.

Even opening the 1 year jar felt like such a time warp, what a trip it's going to be to open the 5, 10 and 15 years!

Anyway, we had to check out on Sunday, but we stayed the whole day at the resort property, which was really fun. Their pool was heated and we did poolside Bingo and AJ went to a basketball contest. We read, and relaxed, and got to enjoy the resort.

We started a Christmas tradition of buying a new ornament each year. Last year, we were in New Zealand and I fell in love with this little popsicle ornament, so I bought it and wrote 2018 on it, and we decided we would do it every year. So we bought a pretty Palm Springs ornament from the resort that I'll put 2019 on and if we keep this up, it'll be a destination Christmas every year.

We had such a fabulous anniversary, it was second only to our wedding, and now Christmas even pales in comparison LOL.

Today is actually the anniversary of the day that we left for our honeymoon. I told AJ that we should celebrate our honeymooniversary every year... by going back on our honeymoon again lololol. Could New Zealand and Tahiti handle us that often...?

Happy December, friends.