one year anniversary

Last friday we were able to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary! Yay, we made it! Saturday, September 25th was our actual wedding anniversary, but we both weren't able to take work off. In fact, I got to spend our actual anniversary working a 10.5 hour shift! Luckily, somehow we both had friday off, so we decided to celebrate a day early!

Our timing worked out perfectly that we were working for Disney and lived in Florida during our anniversary, so of course we decided to celebrate at Disney World! We started our day early at Hollywood Studios, being one of the parks that we haven't gone to more than once already. It is also one of my favorite parks! The crowds were scarce and we were able to go on lots of rides multiple times. The weather wasn't so perfect, however. It rained throughout the day but we still had a blast! This picture was taken while we were waiting in line for Toy Story Mania -- the only ride that had a wait time of over an hour!

After a long fun-filled day at Hollywood Studios, we took a ferry over to EPCOT. It was very relaxing and it felt good to get off our feet. We had plans to eat a romantic dinner at the Italian pavilion and then swing by France for dessert. When we arrived, we realized we probably should have made reservations, and couldn't get into the restaurant for over an hour! We decided to go walk around EPCOT while we waited and found these awesome mickey hats...

We ate dinner at the Italian pizzeria and Clayton was in heaven the entire time! He absolutely adores the people of Italy and was surrounded by many of them at the restaurant. He made great friends with our servers and I even learned a little bit of Italian -- dov'e il gelato?? -- which means, where is the ice cream?? The servers got a laugh out of that one! I was very glad that I had Clayton there to help translate some items off of the menu...he saved me from ordering goat cheese! Gross! We decided to get a pizza that said it would feed 2 - 3 people, and this is what it looked like!

It was huge! I was only able to eat one slice! The green stuff is broccoli - I guess Italians like their vegetables to taste bitter, and that broccoli certainly was!

We also had some Italian bread and Italian soda...which, by the way, is AMAZING....

Right after we ordered dessert, a huge group of servers came and surrounded our table and started singing an Italian celebration song (that closely resembled happy birthday...) and they gave us this!

At first we thought that was the dessert we ordered, and we were slightly disappointed...then a few minutes they brought out our real dessert, which was SO GOOD and so expensive....gelato with cookies, chocolate, cherries, and whipped cream.

Yeah -- we WADDLED out of that restaurant at the end of the night! I'm pretty sure it was definitely the most expensive meal I have ever eaten! Sadly, by the time we were done with our dinner, we had missed the fireworks show. But it's ok, it's not like we won't ever get the chance to see them again... ;) It was such a fun day and I loved that we got to spend it at Disney World! Disney sure has a way to make you feel important on your special day, whatever you may be celebrating.

one year later. . .
I can't believe it has been a year already. As I reflected back to our wedding day on our anniversary, it brought back wonderful memories, and some not-so-great memories! I thought that our wedding day was absolutely wonderful, but sadly, it seemed to go by very fast. Especially since I slept in past my alarm (one of the not-so-great memories), it felt like time was on fast forward and refused to slow down! The only instance where time STOPPED was when I was waiting for Clayton to meet me at the sealing room. I thought that for sure he would have been there before me. Even the temple worker that led me to the sealing room said that they are usually waiting on the bride! I began to really worry -- what if he was having second thoughts?? Did he change his mind?? I was short of having an anxiety attack. When he finally showed up and we found out that his temple worker had told him to wait somewhere completely different! It seemed like half an hour that we were waiting for him, although it was probably only 10 mins. After that, time sped up again, the ceremony flew by, the pictures flew by (at least for me...I know they dragged on for others!!), the reception flew by, and before I knew it, we were driving away to the hotel in our cheese/cracker/llama covered car.
It was a beautiful day...I am so grateful for forever families, and I am so grateful that I was able to be sealed to my best friend for eternity.

Happiest Day of My Life :)