Sunday, March 18, 2012

Our 2nd Anniversary!

This past Tuesday was our 2 year anniversary! Because Wesley was in the OR all day and I had to work the night before, we chose to wait and celebrate this weekend. But when I got home from work on Tuesday morning this is what I saw.


Wesley had the bed turned down for me and placed the sweetest card on my pillow with chocolate and peanut butter candies (my favorite)! It was such a thoughful suprise and I could hardly go to sleep that morning just thinking about how blessed that I am that God chose me to be Wesley's wife! Ok, enough of the cheesy stuff!

A few weeks ago, Wesley and I spent a few nights looking at places online to go for our anniversary. We looked at places on 30A, in Destin, etc....but then Wesley found this really cool loft in Apalachicola. It was avaliable, so he went ahead and booked it. Neither one of us had ever been to Apalachicola/St. George Island nor had we heard much about it except that the area was known for their oysters, so we didn't have super high expectations. We were just looking forward to a weekend away.

Our loft was so nice! It was downtown and so close to all of Apalachicola's cute shops and restaurants.





We even had our own private courtyard!


Someone told us to stop by the Apalachicola Estuarine Reserve while we were there so we went before we did anything else in town. It was neat, but it kinda felt like somewhere you would go on a school field trip. We stayed about 10 minutes, but I thought that it was hysterical how impressed that Wesley was with a whale's backbone. He went straight over to it and tried to show me where he would put in the whale's spinal or epidural...that will definitely come in handy if he ever comes across a whale that needs an emergency c-section on the beach! Can you tell that he LOVES anesthesia!



Once we got back to the loft we walked everywhere! Our car stayed parked all weekend except to drive across the bridge to go to St. George Island on Saturday. And let me just go ahead and say that it is a REALLY good thing that we did a lot of walking because we did A LOT of eating!!! Several of the restaurants have been featured in Southern Living magazine, and we thouroghly enjoyed tasting all that Appalachicola had to offer. We have eaten a lot of seafood since we have lived in PC, but I can honestly say it was some of the best seafood that we have ever eaten!





On Friday night we ate at a place called Up the Creek. You could choose to sit inside in the dining room or outside on the deck. We chose to sit outside because the weather was perfect. We sat on barstools facing the bay. This was our view!




Of course we had to order oysters as an appetizer. I didn't think that I liked oysters, but these were delicious!!!



On Saturday we woke up and walked to breakfast at Tamara's Cafe. Another delicious meal in a quaint restaurant.



And then we drove over to St. George Island!






We ate lunch at The Blue Parrot. It was a fun restaurant on the beach!



We came back to Apalachicola after a day on the beach and as if we hadn't eaten enough by this point, we decided to eat at The Owl Cafe for dinner. It was recommended to us by several of the locals.






This was our dessert...a double bourbon pecan pie with vanilla icecream and hot fudge! Wesley said that if he was ever on death row (which I CERTAINLY HOPE that he is not) that this is what he would want as his last meal! The couple next to us got the dessert before we did and the gentleman told us that if he could literally dive into it he would. We decided at that point that we were going to save room for dessert. It's a really good thing that we did!


Suprisingly enough, we woke up and were hungry enough to eat breakfast before coming home. We ate at a place called Caroline's River Dining. This was our view from our breakfast table.



It was a perfect, laid back weekend and was exactly what we needed. It was a great way to celebrate 2 wonderful years! We are so thankful that we have discovered this part of "the forgotten coast" and hope to go back very soon!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Sarah and Matt's Engagement

This past Wednesday was such a wonderful day for our entire family! Matt asked Sarah to be his wife!!! They have been dating since she was in the 7th grade and he was in the 8th grade....talk about defying the odds! They will both be graduating from Auburn this year! We all feel like Matt is already a part of our family, but we are thrilled that it will be official soon!

Matt met with my dad in January and asked for Sarah's hand in marriage. They met at my dad's office and both prayed for their upcoming marriage. Then they met my mom at the jewelry store and looked at rings!

Matt knows Sarah so well and planned the most romantic proposal. He picked Sarah up for class and told her he was taking her on a picnic to celebrate her birthday a little early, since her birthday will be during Spring Break and they will be with all of their friends. When she got in the car, he shared with her the exciting news he had gotten that day....he got into UAB's medical school and will start in August! They shared a very fancy Italian meal that he prepared at the park. It was a meal like one that they shared in Italy this past summer. He sang her "Happy Birthday" and then gave her her birthday present. It was a golden locket with her new initials engraved on it! She said that she burst into tears. Then he read her an excerpt from his prayer journal. It was a prayer that he wrote out when he knew that it was the right time to get engaged. Then he got on one knee...she was still sitting on the blanket so she said she was actually looking up at him! haha! And he asked her to "please, please, please" be his wife! We were all waiting at her apartment when they drove up. I don't think that the two of them could have been smiling any bigger...even through Sarah's tears of happiness!




She changed clothes VERY QUICKLY and rushed to her chapter meeting for her candlelight. We got to rush in after she blew out the candle and hear the story again. It was amazing to see the tears from girls who love Sarah so much and were so happy for her.








Matt still had a few surprises up his sleeve!

We ate a quick dinner at Zoe's, and then went back to Matt's house where about 70 of their best friends were there to celebrate her birthday and their engagement! We popped open some champagne, and they told the story again for the ones that hadn't heard it!










They are working on setting a date, but are hoping to get married in December this year!

I think that these pictures are so sweet. Matt and his mom hugging before her oldest son proposed and the excitement on Matt's face about proposing to Sarah! Priceless!