More Today Than Yesterday...

I love you more today than yest-er-daayyyyy. But not as much as tomorrrroooow!

Those of you that were there know, but for those that weren't this was the song we danced to for our first dance at our wedding. I had always loved the song, but to be honest, it was never a part of our courtship. It wasn't our staple song. Actually our staple song was/is Ron Dante's "I go to Rio." Oh you don't know it? Look it up! It's quite fantastic! Anyways, we really wanted to dance to "I go to Rio," but the band didn't know it, and I'm not sure we gave them enough time to learn it. So, after much thought, it just came to us! "More Today Than Yesterday!" It was perfect!

Over this past year, I've found myself singing it in my head and aloud to Mike. Most the time he just rolls his eyes at my beautiful singing voice, but I always catch a little smirk on his face. The lyrics are so true for me though. I really do love that man more each day! Some days we may have to dig a little deeper than others, but the love is always there.

We've had a spectacular first year of marriage! After our wedding, I joined Mike in Fayetteville, N.C. Many friends had forewarned me and told me exactly how much I was going to hate it there. I was nervous. Boy were they wrong! It was a great place! Granted, traffic was terrible, but that aside, I loved it. It had some great local restaurants and a charming downtown. I met some wonderfully women inside the Army and within the community. I found myself working part-time at Betty Kelly's Gift Shop and the Cape Fear Botanical Garden Gift Shop. The people I worked with were amazing! What more could a girl want in a duty station? Better shopping? Okay, I'll give you that one, but Raleigh was only a little over an hour away.

I'll keep the rest of the year short and simple. Here we go:

We went to Wilimington, N.C. Charleston, S.C.; white-water rafting and ziplining in Colorado; Jamaica for a wedding; Asheville, N.C. and drove across the country to move to California! 

How fun it was to celebrate our first anniversary in sunny California! The best thing about getting married on MLK weekend is four-day-weekend anniversaries!!! Even though we already have three-day weekends here because Mike doesn't have class on Fridays; it's still fun to have an extra day. :)

The celebration started Friday morning at 9:30 when this package arrived at our door.

Our wedding cake was here! Because we had cupcakes and one small cake to cut into on our wedding day, our sweet baker, Mary, from Mary's Cakes and Pasteries made a replica of our small cake, wrapped it up and ready for us to put into the freezer. A year ago, we had no idea we'd be moving to California and would have to figure out a way to get it there. 

My sweet Mother (anyone who knows her, knows she's the best!) thought for months on the best way to get it to us in California. We thought of overnighting it, but it was way too expensive. It turned out the best bang for her buck was to just ship it standard via Fed Ex. It took 3.5 days to get here, but it came! I was so excited, that is, until I opened the box. It had a suspicious smell to it, but not too bad. I thought, we just have to take a bite. And who says we have to wait until Sunday? Still, I was so excited to see it! And this is what we got:

It probably would have been okay, if it hadn't been put into the Fed Ex box already upside down! D'oh! Oh well, Momma tried! And for that, I love her!!!

We took one bite of our cake right then and there, and then shared some with the pups. 

 They thought it tasted just fine!

Saturday was wine tasting at a beautiful winery, Chateau Julien. They were having a special event Barrels and Futures tasting. We got to taste some yummy wines that will be released at the end of this year.

Sunday was our actual anniversary. We had dinner at Peppoli's at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach. Before dinner we had cocktails by the firepits overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At the end of the golf day, a bag piper walks around Spanish Bay and performs for the patrons. Unfortunately, we missed the bagpiper, but the cocktails and fire were still quite enjoyable. 

We sat down for dinner, opened our menu and saw this:

Of course it brought tears to my eyes. It doesn't take much to make me cry.

Then we capped off the down with some more time by the fire, except it was too windy outside by that point, so we had to sit inside. 

Because our cake didn't quite make it in whole, we celebrated with homemade cupcakes and champagne. What a spectacular year we've had!