Celebrating 7 Years

On July 27th, 2002 I married my high school sweetheart. I had just turned 18 and he was 19. Seven years later here we are with 2 wonderful little monsters and still very much in love. We've had our share of tough times and there has even been times where I've thought we couldn't make it. But I wouldn't trade our time together for anything. Every trial we've been through (and there's been many) has made us stronger as a couple and I am thankful for each one.

To celebrate our 7th anniversary we decided to do something different. Every year we go out to eat, see a movie and go home. I wanted to do something fun that didn't cost a lot of money. I said I want to go on a hike somewhere and he mentioned going on the Blue Ridge Parkway. For those of
you who don't know what that is go here for
some info!http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/

He said there is a place called Graveyard Fields that I might like that had some waterfalls and was a good hike. It's amazing to me that I have lived here my entire life and I've never been to these places! I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. It is so beautiful here all year round!

I took the kids to my parents house on Friday evening so I wouldn't have to waste half the day on Saturday to take them (It takes almost an hour to get there). I was so looking forward to going out and spending a weekend without kids... that is until it came time to drop them off! I took them in, with all their bags of unnecessary stuff I thought they had to have. Which they don't, my mom has everything they need. I mean she does have 7 grand babies I think she can handle these 2! Gavin just ran off with my niece Kaylee and played but Gage kept giving me hugs and kisses. After I had been trying all week to get him to give me a kiss and he'd just tell me no (or as he says 'nuuu'!) He has just learned to pucker his lips so he'd pucker up and put his lips on my lips but then he'd make the hugging sound! Anyway, he gave me like 10 of those kiss/hugs and I didn't want to leave at all! He would wrap his little arms around my legs and squeeze. Then when I actually made myself go out the door he cried! Oh and my niece who I don't get to see very often was begging me to take her with me. Another heart breaker there. Needless to say I cried the entire way home!

When I got home of course my husband wasn't there so I was lonely in a quiet house. And instead of pampering myself a little, what do I do? I take a toothbrush and clean all the kids shoes that they had just grown out of. Ugh I'm such a mom! Then I ate a turkey sub leftover from lunch because I didn't have time to eat it.

I watched the news and they had said there had been a motorcycle accident with a fatality but they didn't have any more info at the time. And for some reason I had a weird feeling. I shrugged it off and turned the channel. At about 7:00pm my husband called with the news that a friend of his and his wife were in an accident. My heart sank. I said was it the motorcycle accident on Town Mtn road? He said 'yeah how did you know'? I said they said something about it on the news. He said his friend was killed and his wife was in critical condition. It took awhile to sink in so all I could say was man that sucks! I got off the phone and tweeted about it. That's when it sank in and I started to cry. I didn't know them real well but we all used to hang out together and they were really nice people. Really young and fun. I was so upset I actually got up, went to the store and bought a pack of cigarettes. I haven't smoked in 2 years! It did help me calm down but it made me sick at the same time. Serves me right! I thought how can we enjoy spending the weekend celebrating our anniversary when one of our friends is in the hospital and doesn't even know her husband has died?

But after my husband walked through that door I was so glad to see him and to hold him I think it actually made us both realize how much we love each other and that in a second it can all be gone. We lay in the floor and held each other while we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (great movie by the way!). It seemed like we couldn't let go of each other. If we weren't hugging we were holding hands. We were up until 3:00am!

Which kind of killed the idea of getting up early to go hiking! We did get up and leave by noon though so
it didn't kill our entire day. We got on
the parkway and drove with the windows down enjoying the view. How many times can I say I love living here? Well I'll say it again , I love living in Western North Carolina! I think when I get so wrapped up in life I forget how lucky I am.

The more we drove the cooler the temperature got. It started out at 86 degrees and by the time we got to where we were going it was 72 degrees. But it felt cooler than that because it was a little breezy and cloudy...perfect! I was worried it would be so hot we'd overheat and be miserable.

We walked down the trail to the first waterfall
where all the kids were swimming in a swimming hole. The trail was paved and there were wooden bridges with benches on them. I was thinking well this is too easy. I'm not going to get much of a workout! I wanted a challenge.

We looked around at the waterfall and took some pictures. We went past the first fall and went down another set of steps this one a little steeper. Then the trail split. The one to the right went to the upper falls and the left one didn't really say where it went. Of course we took the left one! There was a little path there so we followed it for about 1.5 - 2 miles. It was mostly decent walking. There were a few parts that were a little steep going down hill and a few logs we had to climb over.


We could hear another waterfall so we walked down to where we could see it. We wanted to see if we could get down to the bottom of it so we went back into the woodsto find a path. Every one was a ended with a cliff. We walked all the way around a big brier patch and could see the bottom of the waterfall but it was pretty steep to get down to it. We climbed down and I was thinking 'oh man we're going to have to climb back up this thing'!

When we got to the bottom we took our shoes off and walked in water to cool off. We walked around on the rocks and relaxed in the sun for a little while.







You'll have to forgive my bad hair. I was hot and sweaty from the hike!


We stayed for a couple hours and then we had to start the climb back up! I was not looking forward to it. To get back up to the trail we had to climb... and climb... and climb! I swear in some places it was like rock climbing. It was straight up and down and we had to find foot and hand holds to pull ourselves up. I finally got the workout I was wanting and more! By the time we got back up to the trail we were drenched in sweat and out of breath. My husband was in the lead after that and we had a real good, quick pace going. I was feeling pretty good. It had started to sprinkle rain a little bit so we were cooling off. And I was thinking 'I'm pretty proud of myself. I held my own and kept up the entire time.'


Then we got back to the steps to go to the first waterfall. I almost didn't make it to the top! You wouldn't think that steps would be the hardest part of that entire trip but it was. My legs were so wobbly I didn't think I could take one more step.

After the steps, we still had a little paved trail to go up to get back to the car. And of course it was ALL uphill. I thought I was going to die! I was stinky, sweaty, and dirty. I'm glad we got out of there when we did. Right after we left it started pouring rain!

When we got to the car my husband said 'where do you want to go eat?' I said 'but I'm stinky and dirty.' and he said 'so?' So I said 'ok if you say so'. We decided to go for mexican. I couldn't eat much when I got there though, I was so exhausted!



We didn't make it to the movie we had planned on seeing. We didn't think we would be able to sit through the whole thing without falling asleep so we came home and watched tv. Well the tv was on but we both passed out in the floor!



When we woke up we took a shower, and changed clothes trying to find something to do. I had the weird urge to play Scrabble. Don't ask me why, I just did! We drove out to the theatre at 10:00pm but still didn't feel like sitting through a movie so we stopped at the store, bought Scrabble and went home and played. I beat him by the way!



I know it may not seem like the usual way to celebrate an anniversary but I thought it was the perfect day. I saw my husband smile more that day than I had seen in what feels like months. It felt really good to spend some quality time talking and having fun with him.

Happy Anniversary honey, I love you