8 Years and Counting!!

**February 13th, 2009**

So this post has been a long time coming and I haven't had time to work on it yet. Me and Mark celebrated our 8 year anniversary on February 13th, 2009. It was an especially special anniversary because we are now engaged.

I have had some of the best times of my life with Mark, we have been through a lot, but in the end we have come out of everything together, if not stronger. I love him like crazy and I cannot wait until I am married to him. One thing that Mark does every year of our anniversary is get me an engraved frame with our names, the date of our anniversary, and how many years it is. So far I have 8! They are so fun to look at because we have both changed so much over the years and its fun to look back on. So I scanned all of our yearly pics that our in my frames today and here they are! So Mark...thanks for 8 great years and here's to MANY MANY MORE!!

I love you!

1st Year Anniversary

This one is priceless! We both look so young and you can see it. This was our first year. Mark "made" me dinner (later I found out he picked it up at Buca Di Beppo, where he was working at the time) and we dined on lemon chicken and had raspberry cheesecake for dessert (too bad I don't like cheesecake, but I tried it anyway!) We also sipped on sparkling grape juice while eating at a fold table in his room listening to water sounds on his stereo. Afterwards we went downtown to see Blue Man Group and then we went to Baskin Robbins on our way home....it was fun and special, and I am actually surprised by my great memory!!

2nd Year Anniversary

I love this picture...this is our 2nd year anniversary and I think this is one of my favorites out of the eight. April took this picture while we were on our way to tabbagon(not sure about the spelling but it is where you sled down on those sleds). Once again we both look so young! Actually to be honest, I don't remember what we did for our 2nd year anniversary!!

3rd Year Anniversary

This is our 3rd year picture. It was taken when me and Mark went to Ixtapa Mexico for Spring Break our sophomore year of college. It was a fun time spent hanging out by the pool and going on a scary snorkeling trip! I think that we saved our money up to take this trip for our anniversary so once again I cannot remember exactly what we did on Feb. 13th but I know we saved for this trip...and it was very nice! This is also the year me and Mark took a "break" (geez, I hate that word, and breaks are stupid!) I'm grateful it didn't last too long and we both learned about ourselves during this and I definitely think it made us stronger!

4th Year Anniversary

This is our fourth year picture. I think that for our fourth year we went out to eat at Biaggi's where Mark had worked. This was the first time I had ever been there and Mark worked there for awhile! It was my first and only time I ever went there and it was AWESOME! They had awesome bread pudding!!

5th Year Anniversary

This was our 5th year and it was the year I graduated college. I went home and Mark stayed down at school. This was hard but we got through it. Once again I cannot remember what we did for this anniversary (Sorry Mark!)

6th Year Anniversary

This is one of my favorite pictures of Mark and I. This was taken when I visited Mark in Arizona where he was doing his internship for school. It was so fun to visit him! It was hard for him to be gone for the 4 months, I was on my own, but thankfully we got through everything and once again came out stronger! :) This anniversary we went to this place in Arizona where there are only like 8 tables and the chef cooks the food fresh and there are 6 courses, and the menu changes every day. It was so fun and great to have this new dining experience. Arizona was awesome!

7th Year Anniversary

Here is another one of my favorite pictures! I love it, Mark looks so happy in it! We were out for Mark's sisters, Stephanie's 21st birthday downtown. And for some reason I cannot think of what we did for our anniversary. How come I can remember our first year but not our 7th year?!?! (Mark help me out with these!)

8th Year Anniversary

I am not a fan of this picture, but it was taken on our actual anniversary. We went to Francesca's in Frankfort. I was soooooo good. One of my favorite restaurants.



I love this picture. It was just taken in Florida a couple weeks ago by April.


I am so happy to be able to say that I have 8 awesome picture frames of Mark and I over the years that have so many memories behind them. This year will be full of wedding planning and before we hit our 10 year anniversary we will be married and we will have to start all over again! :(



Thanks for the memories Mark, LOVE YOU! They went by sooo fast!

Remembrance

So while I am super excited for the wedding next July there is a part of me that gets sad thinking about it because there are people that aren't going to be there that I really wanted to be there. Two of them are my grandpas who I love and miss terribly and I know they would be so proud of me and happy to know I am marrying a guy like Mark. I cry everytime I think of them not being there. Second is Uncle Lee. While I did not know him that well and he passed when I was younger, I still remember him and how he liked to always hang out with the kids and buy us shirts from all the great places he visited. There is also my sister-in-law Carrie. It just plain sucks that she won't be there. She won't be there for me and Mark, she won't be there to see Kelsey all dressed up in a junior bridesmaid dress, and she won't be there for Dan.

Since unfortunately four people that I love won't be there I want to be able to remember them somehow. I thought about pictures with candles at the ceremony, but we don't know if it will be a church or not and I am sure that in a nice garden they won't be letting me light any candles. So instead, I think I have decided on this project that I found on weddingbee.com.

They are bouquet charms. I would make them myself from glass scrabble tile and a picture of the loved one I want to remember. You could make them easier by just buying memorial charms that are little picture frames but they are expensive and we do have tight budget so I plan on making them on my own. Here is an idea of what they would look like: (and no, I have no idea who the person is on this tile...its from a weddingbee's blog!)




I think it is a great idea, its small but I will be holding my flowers so that means I will be holding them too and they will be there for me on my big day :) So no matter what, Grandpa Pultz, Grandpa Demski, Uncle Lee and Carrie will be there!



Oh, and I just purchased a kit for 14.00 and will be able to make all of the charms with it!!

DONE-ZO!

So yesturday I finished my last class I need to take to get my teacher certification and my master's degree...I'm done and it feels OH SO GOOD! All I have left now is student teaching in the fall.
This summer will be filled with work and babysitting but I am looking forward to it being full of fun too! Hopefully I will also be able to update the blog a little bit more and catch up on wedding planning! We still need a place to have a ceremony!!