Saturday, February 21, 2009 was one of the best days of my married life. It was an anniversary that will be remembered for a long, long time as Waylon put so much thought into making it "our" day. I woke up and went to the gym to do my weekly weigh in as I am in the Biggest Loser Challenge at HQ Fitness. Hubby met me up there and whisked me away to a wonderful day. Thankfully, my mom and Maggie were here to take the kids all day, so that part was stress-free! I had no idea where all we were going and that was really the most fun part. We first pulled up at Desoto Artworx which is a "paint-a-piece" studio. I have not painted pottery in a very long time so this was a great gift to me...the gift of my time doing something I enjoy. Waylon suggested we pick out a piece that we could put on our dining room table and we should paint it together in some way that symbolizes our 5th anniversary. After much thought and searching for the perfect shaped piece, we chose a boat shaped dish that is not too big and not too small. It took a little while for my creative juices to start flowing, but I knew I wanted to incorporate "five" and that day's date somehow in the piece without it being too obvious. You will see in the photos below that I painted a "H" on the dish and tried to creatively hide the date and the word five in the little bubbles on the stamped band going down the center of the piece. Hopefully, these won't stand out too much once it has been fired. Stay tuned for pictures of the final product.
Since you have to put at least 3 coats of paint on the pottery for the color to be right, it took forever to get the project going. We had our next event planned for us at 1:15 (and I was getting hungry) so we left the studio and he took me on the road again...to which I assumed was a lunch date (since we seem to never miss a meal). Right I was. We pulled into Sekesui and I was so excited because we don't eat sushi too much. We sat at the sushi bar since we didn't have the kids and each ordered a couple of rolls. It was DELICIOUS as always, but Jimmy (the sushi chef) gave me an extra bowl of crab with crunchies so I was super pumped.
We finished pretty quickly there and went back to the pottery studio to finish the piece. It was late afternoon when we were done and Waylon had planned on me getting my nails done, but we really needed to get home to get ready for mass at 6 pm. Me, mom, Maggie, Waylon, Jon Walker, and Kennedy got all dressed up and headed out to mass and then waited on all our friends and family to get to the church afterwards for our vow ceremony. We had so many loved ones show up to support us and you all mean the world to us. Thank you for spending your evening with us as we celebrated a very meaningful occasion.
Now, I thought Father Greg was going to just bless our vows and say a little prayer and such. No, we did the whole nine yards. He gathered our wedding bands from us before the service started. We started with a prayer and then we knelt down as he blessed us and our family. Then he asked us to stand so we could say our vows to one another...was not expecting that. We did the whole business all over again of "I, Catherine Clare, take you, Waylon, lalalalala......" I must say it was very refreshing to take those vows all over again. Of course your wedding vows mean something to you on your wedding night, but when you go through the ups and downs of an actual marriage, saying them again puts off a completely different feeling and whirlwind of emotions. I mean, I was nowhere close to crying on my wedding night and I teared up Saturday night. Then after we said our vows, Father blessed our wedding rings and we did the giving of the rings and the whole verbage that goes with it. Then the kicker...part 2 of what I was NOT expecting...Father's words were, "and now everyone give the couple an applause as we end with a kiss". Oh, my gosh...I think I just got married all over again, and it was great!
We all went to Windy City Grill for dinner and it meant so much to be around such great friends and family. We had the longest table ever but everyone was close by and that was great. The food was amazing and the music, wine, and company was even better! I have the most wonderful husband and we had such a meaningful anniversary that will give me memories for a lifetime. The only thing missing is the honeymoon!
