FRIDAY NO. 25 | ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Today's "Friday No" is going to recap how we celebrated our anniversary. I promise this will be my last post on our anniversary, I know y'all are probably over it, but I couldn't move on without sharing how we celebrated!

We had thrown the idea of going somewhere for the weekend since we took Monday (our actual anniversary) and Tuesday off. At first we talked about Chattanooga and then just decided to stay home, but then we thought about Cookeville, where we got married, and just couldn't think of anywhere else we wanted to celebrate our anniversary. We have been on the go so much and really just wanted a long weekend to relax and enjoy each other's company. We didn't want to sight see and go on any tours. We literally just wanted to relax and do whatever we felt like doing. And that is exactly what we did!

Saturday morning I picked up Matthew's anniversary present and then gave it to him, because we are both really impatient and I was too excited to wait until Monday lol. We spent the rest of the day watching T.V, napping, doing some stuff around the house and more T.V. and napping. It was great and I honestly can't remember having a day like that since 2015.  We did venture out to Golden Corral for dinner and decided over dinner that we should go to Cookeville that night instead of Sunday afternoon.That way we could go to church there at our old church and see all of our friends, that we miss so much. So we ran back home and packed our bags and headed to Cookeville. We are so glad we did! It was great seeing everyone and getting to catch up. Sunday morning we even sang my absolute favorite hymn, The Greatest Command. During our wedding ceremony we had everyone sing it and I still can't make it all the way through singing it now without getting choked up. So when the song leader, Marc, who lead it at our wedding ceremony, started it Sunday morning I about lost it. I told Matthew that was one of the best anniversary gifts.

We stayed with our best friends older brother and wife, Brandon and Sara, since that's where our other best friend, Rachel, lives too. We are so thankful they let us stay with them and enjoyed our time visiting with them.

After church Sunday we went to one of our Cookeville favorites, El Tap. 

Then we all went back to their house and lounged around all afternoon until time for church that night. Rachel and I did get out for a bit to make a run to the store while Matthew and Ethan played Xbox. At one point we all dozed off while watching Netflix.  Matthew was obsessed with Brandon and Sara's dog, Mila. She laid with us some Sunday morning before we got up and ready, and she and Matthew took a nap together Sunday afternoon lol.

Sunday night after church we ate at Bellacino's and completely forgot how good their pizza is! Thankfully we have one that is about 15 minutes from our house. Later Sunday night we decided to go to Sno Shack. It's a fairly new place in Cookeville and I have heard so many good things about it, so I was excited to try it out. Well, it exceeded my expectations and I am already wanting to go back.

I got the peaches and cream with extra cream and Matthew got the cookie dough cream with extra cream. We thought cookie dough shaved ice sounded weird, but Matthew was eager to try it, thankfully he liked it lol but we tried it and didn't care for it. I think they just use butterscotch flavoring and call it cookie dough, because that's exactly what it tasted like! 

 There were a TON of flavors to choose from.

I think they are open year round so I am excited to try some other flavors next time we are up there. We drove around while eating our shaved ice and saw some of our favorites and then ended up at the SOC house. They are making a lot of changes to it and it's looking really good. It's a little bittersweet going there now that it has changes so much. We basically spent every night there after work and classes until it was time to go to our apartments and sleep. The SOC house will always be one of my favorite places, and I can't wait to take our kids there one day on their college tour and show them where their mom and dad used to hangout while they lived in Cookeville...oh wait, our kids might not want to go to Tech one day? Just kidding, of course they will ;) 

We headed back to Brandon and Sara's house and Brandon had started a fire for us to sit around. We all sat around and talked for the longest time. Before I knew it, it was after midnight! We all headed to bed soon after that.

Monday we woke up and went to Chick-fil-A for breakfast. After breakfast we went to Essex. If you have never heard of Essex before, it is a bargin hunt store and we love it. So much we used to go every Thursday while we lived in Cookeville, it eventually became our Thrifty Thursday routine each week and truthfully, we miss it! After Essex we went to our wedding venue to make some pictures!

The white brick and those black double doors will always make me extremely happy. It was such a blessing being back at our wedding venue on our actual anniversary, so special and I loved it!

Funny story about that frame...I put our wedding picture in it and then put the frame in our trunk when we were packing to go to Cookeville. I left it in the trunk when we got there Saturday night since we weren't making the pictures until Monday. Well Monday when I got the frame out of the trunk the back fell off. I tried putting the picture, glass and backing back in the frame and then I realized that the frame had gotten so hot in my trunk that it was melted and wouldn't stay together lol so we are holding the frame together in these pictures!! 

Monday afternoon Matthew and I had a couples massage scheduled, so we headed to that. We found a place in Algood that was reasonably priced so we decided to give it a shot. The reviews were good and it looked like a clean place, but we were still a little skeptical lol. I am happy to report that it turned out just fine and we both really enjoyed our massages. 

After our massage they had chocolate covered strawberries and waters ready for us to go. 

After our massages we were starving and ready for lunch. So we headed to Sakura, another Cookeville favorite, to pick up lunch. We got Ethan and Rachel's lunch too and headed to the SOC house to eat lunch with them. We hung out there for a bit before we headed home. Leaving Cookeville this time was a bit harder on the both of us. I choked back tears and Matthew talked about how fun it would be to still live there. I don't know if I have ever said this on here (kidding, I've said it a million times) before but Cookeville is our absolute favorite place. I am 100% positive that if our commutes to work wouldn't be so bad we would pack our bags and move tomorrow. The pace of life there is just so much slower and we LOVE everything about the town. 

We decided to rent some Redbox movies Monday night and stay in. We chose to go to our favorite places in Cookeville over one fancy meal in Nashville and I am so happy with that decision!

Tuesday we woke up bright and early and both had dermatologist and dentist appointments, but not before we made another stop at Chick-fil-A for breakfast! After our appointments we ran some errands and then decided to go to lunch. We wanted to try something new so we looked up places around us that we haven't tried, and found a place out on the lake about 20 minutes from our house. So we went, and it was really good! Even though it felt like a 100 degrees we sat out on the deck because it had a ton of fans so we weren't terribly hot and could still eat. 

We really enjoyed it there and plan on going back.

After lunch we came back home and watched a movie and then I went to the eye doctor and Matthew went to the chiropractor. That night we just lounged around and went to bed fairly early since we had to go back to the real world the next morning!

I got Matthew a painting of our house for our anniversary! When we bought our house I really wanted to surprise him on closing day with a painting of it but the girl I had contacted about doing it was really expensive so I decided to just wait. Well our 1st anniversary was the perfect time, and I had another friend who paints and asked her and she was half the price! He absolutely loves it and I am so excited to get it framed soon. It will sit on our built-ins once we have them. 

She is absolutely incredible and the detailing of her work just blows my mind. She actually has an Etsy shop. Seriously, go look at her work right now. Girl is TALENTED.

We decided to do traditional gifts and the first year is paper. Isn't canvas close to paper? lol. We'll just act like it is. ;) My gift from Matthew is a photo book. He just showed me pictures of it because he knew I would want to help make it. I have been looking for a nice, heirloom worthy photo book and we found Artifact Uprising's photo books and I immediately knew that was the one. We have already started working on it and I can't wait to see the finished product!

We had the best long weekend together celebrating! So thankful for that husband of mine.

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FRIDAY NO. 25 | ANNIVERSARY EDITION