10 Amazing Years...and we FINALLY made it Serendipity!

 10 Amazing Years!! Yes. 

It is still blowing my mind. How did time go so fast? 

In any case, we FINALLY made it to Serendipity!

(more on that in a minute)

As I attempt to document the most important things of the last Spring and Summer,

I thought the perfect place to start was with one of the most important things that happened.

We celebrated our 10 Year Anniversary!!

In perfect fashion, 10 years of creating a full, happy, wonderful and busy 

life and obligations caught up with me, 

and I ran out of blogging steam for a while, right before our anniversary.

That doesn't mean, however, that it was any less awesome, romantic, meaningful and terrific for us!

We had a wonderful anniversary! 

To be honest, our actual 10 year anniversary probably couldn't have

 fallen at a worse time logisitically for taking a big anniversary trip. 

 We happen to be in the USA for training at FSI- which basically means it is impossible to take a big vacation. They had Noah's training schedule packed pretty tight. The "ten years ago me" would have been pretty sad about the prospect of not doing some big trip ON our anniversary. I'm into dates like that. However, the "ten years in me" -just happen to have 10 amazing years of  10th Anniversary Worthy Trips already under her belt! Seriously. We have been so incredibly blessed to have seen so many places and things that most people will never see one of in their lifetime. It really puts things into perspective. We love our life so much, and count our blessings every single day.  So instead we made it count where we could, and have opted to do a beautiful beach vacation after the fact, (coming up here soon, hopefully)! Yay for being near some beautiful islands! 

Also logistically- our anniversary was on a Thursday. Boo. 

Being that our primary source of babysitters were teenage girls in DC, 

that wasn't the best option for the  big date night. 

So Thursday night, after flowers and chocolates- we took the kids to Panda Express! 

The same restaurant that we went to back on our first date all those years ago. 

We told them our love story, (which I'm sure they enjoyed oh so much:) and reminisced about our wedding day!   There is nothing better to remind you how far you've come and what you've accomplished in ten years than wrangling 3 rambunctious boys while out to eat!

 We have something tangible to show for our time and effort: chaos and laughter!

We also made sure to document the actual day- 

 Photos courtesy of Porter

The bi-product of 10 terrific years-

3 handsome boys to share our dinner (and life) with

 

 

 the flowers and chocolates; 

he's a keeper with my traditional purple tulips (just like my wedding bouquet)

and I made him a candy gram like I did when we were dating. yup. I'm that sappy.

Now for the BIG date.

We went to Serendipity 3!!!

There's a story here too, 10 years in the making. 

The first time Noah and I spent any time together was at his apartment in a big group, as I had tagged along on a whim with a friend who was already friends with all of "the guys". 

That was a fun day, but no big deal; and I left right after that for a 

weeklong trip to NYC to visit my roommate who had just moved there. 

As the movie Serendipity had just come out, we of course made sure to join the other throngs of tourists to get ourselves some Frozen Hot Chocolate at the real Serendipity. I picked myself up a cool little 

T-shirt, complete with bedazzled "Serendipity" across the front. It was a cute shirt. Seriously. 

Well, while I was gone on my trip, Noah apparently set to work devising a plan to ask me out the minute I got home. When he finally got ahold of me, plans were made to go out that very evening! 

I had just returned, and was wearing my Serendipity shirt.

Now, I'm a Colorado girl- so to get straight to my heart he took me to a rodeo. He's a keeper. 

Since this was a casual event, I decided no need to change out of my cute t-shirt.

Thus, I was wearing my Serendipity shirt on our first date!!

He held my hand that night, and we've never looked back. Been together ever since!

It was in every sense of the word, Serendipity. 

Fast forward through the years...

we have had friends living in or near NYC for much of our married life,

 and given family circumstances that landed us on the East Coast a decent amount-

 we have been to NYC numerous times throughout the years to visit them.

Given the sentimental connection to our first date, we have tried to go together. 

Boy have we tried. We have attempted on numerous occasions, and even tried to make reservations-

but we have always been foiled by hours long wait times, 

and we either had something like tickets to a show, 

or just decided we didn't want to stand outside for 4 hours. boo. 

So ten years in, we had still never been together. 

As we searched for a place to go for our actual date,

 sans kiddos to celebrate on Friday night,

(I didn't want to go just anywhere. Sure, you go to a nice restaurant, 

but we've been to nice restaurants. It needed to be a little more special.)

SO

we discovered that there was a Serendipity that had recently opened in Georgetown! 

I was thrilled!

Of course it wasn't the one in NYC, but it was still Serendipity!

Given our tight schedule for the time being, we knew we needed to take what we could get! 

drumroll please....

so finally after 10 years of trying, we finally got to get nice and cozy, 

and share a Frozen Hot Chocolate!

Also, as luck would have it, 

 the technical name of the restaurant is

Serendipity 3- based on a story of 3 princes. 

As you might know, 10 years of marriage has blessed us with 3 handsome princes of our own!

Loved it. 

Here is a quick pic of me in front of the story about the princes.

 What an amazing 10 years we have had together. It has been so wonderful, and full of spunk and adventure! I never would have dreamed it could be so incredible, and through every challenge and triumph we have gone at it together! 

Thank you Noah, for being the best partner a girl could ever have in life!

I love you more every day, and can't wait to spend the rest of eternity together!

Happy 10th Anniversary to us!!!