Anniversary Part Deux

Following up from Anniversary Part 1…

We got home from camping, quickly unloaded the car and showered to get up to Wrigley to play catch on the field.  We checked in and were lead to an area that had several people there already with hot dogs, brats, chips, cookies, ice cream, pop, water, and beer; all free!  Despite having eaten grilled food all weekend; I’m never one to turn down a brat at a ball park.

After we ate lunch in the bleachers, we walked down to the field where we had three rules to follow: 1. No food/drink on field 2. No throwing in the infield and 3. No touching the ivy.  However, we did have one little snafu…you see the confirmation email had said don’t forget your gloves, but nowhere in it had it said to bring a ball.  I had been under the impression they’d have some there for us.  Well, they didn’t.  Ben decided to make us a “ball” by crinkling up our brats wrappers.  It actually worked really well.  We tossed it around a few times on right field until my ketchup started to leak out of the wrapper and get all over our hands and gloves (and my shirt).  That was the end of catch; but hey! At least we tried.  The next 40 minutes or so were spent taking lots of pictures and meandering all around the field.



Rings on Wrigley



Ben's Blame Bartman Pose



Love the Ivy

Later at home while on the couch, Ben discussed a tick on Oscar. Yuck.  I had found two crawling on him while camping, and one on the drive home, but the tick Ben found was actually latched on to Oscar and not easy to pull off like the others had been.  Poor Oscar; he laid on the couch when Ben kept his finger on the spot and I ran for tweezers.  That little sucker was clamped on! Ew!!!  After searching we found one more and pulled that off too.  Then I called the 1-800 # on Oscar’s K9 Advantix Flea and Tick repellent (unfortunately for us; Oscar was due for a dose.  Had we put it on prior to camping, we could have possibly avoided this situation).  We decided to head to Petco to buy an anti-tick shampoo.  Although now I'm uber paranoid that I have one on me.  I've already had Ben scower my hair and per the recommendation of one of Ben's friends who works in tick-populated enviroments, I've constantly been checking my legs, armpits, etc (I guess they can get on the body and instinctually know to crawl to the head, but it can take up to two days for them to get there? Disgusting!)

While we were out we stopped at the grocery store (probably one of few football Sundays that Ben agreed to go) and also picked up Roots pizza for dinner.  We both laughed that we weren’t going out for a nice dinner on our anniversary; but hey, tradition is tradition and Sunday night is pizza night!  Roots was a “special” treat.  It’s “Quad City” style pizza and something we’ve only had twice here since it opened this summer.  To get there requires driving (as opposed to Art of Pizza which is literally just a few blocks walk), but man was it worth it.  Soooo good!

After dinner we exchanged gifts;  to follow with the first anniversary gift of paper, Ben had our wedding announcement printed in our hometown’s paper when we were there at the beginning of the month.  It was supposed to be a surprise (he was going to get it framed and then show me), but he had forgotten to tell my parents, so my dad spilled the beans.  However, I decided not to look at it at the time; so the first time I saw the announcement was last night in the frame.  I have started a “frame” wall with mementos from different events framed, so this will be added to the wall.  (It’s actually inspired by the family I used to babysit for.  They collect everything from trips like plane tickets, match books, cocktail napkins etc and have items matted/frame.  Their entire hallway (about 20 feet long) has these frames of trips on both sides and it’s so cool to look at all of them; especially the older ones where they have the 90’s style haircuts, etc.).  So here’s my frame and the existing frame wall we’ll add to:



The current wall has (from left to right): Our wedding (the front and back of our save the date, our RSVP, and a pic from the ceremony), our honeymoon (top middle: matted with the resort's stationary), the proposal collar and a picture from that morning (Right after getting engaged, I knew I wanted this in a shadowbox type frame.  I went to both Joanne's and Michaels to see about custom framing.  Both places told me that for what I wanted (the collar and a 5x7 picture), it'd be about $300+, with a coupon.  Even though it took about a year and a half after the proposal, I finally framed it myself, for about $12!!  I found the frame for $10 at Joanne's (after coupon).  It actually is supposed to sit with the picture vertical instead of horizontal and the smaller "window" is for a graduation tassel.  After some brown scrapbook paper and useing some Zips glue strips (left over from making invitations), everything is safe and secured to sit horizontally.  I'm so proud of this project!) and lastly on the right is our race numbers and medals from our first half marathon (again, Michael's wanted about $400 to matte this, lucky for me my mom has a professional matte cutter; so besides the picture, I used her supplies and skills and this project was pretty much free):

Ben also got me this amazing bracelet with my married name monogram.  Apparently during summer Ben had asked me for gift ideas and I’d randomly sent him this (I found it on pinterest, it’s on my fashion and accessories board.  Actually when I sent my sis a pic of it last night, she commented how she had some similar pinned.  Lol, the world of pinterest. "Yep, that's it!" I responded .  Just recently Ben asked me about my monogram and I’d totally forgot that I sent the bracelet.  I absolutely love it; in fact, I’m wearing it today :O)

So for Ben’s gift, besides the surprise of the Wrigley event, I decided to follow the paper gift and make him a photobook….of boudoir pictures.  I’d never really heard of them until I was on The Knot wedding planning.  I’d considered doing them for Ben’s wedding gift last year, but after spending so much on the wedding; I wasn’t interested in spending more on the boudoir.  However, earlier this summer I’d decided that I’d do them for our anniversary…I mean with all of my marathon training, to be honest, I’m not sure when I’ll be in this kind of shape again anytime soon.  I booked with Kathleen Thame.  Around here boudoir “marathons” are popular.  The photographer books a hotel and has a professional hair and makeup artist come in.  Hair and makeup is optional, but well worth it!  After emailing a ton with Kate, I decided I thought I’d be comfortable enough with her to do the shoot.

On a random Friday night, I went met her at a hotel downtown.  I was so nervous on the way that I seriously thought about not going.  It was surprisingly easy to get out of the house.  I told Ben I was going to meet some of the bookclub ladies at someone’s house.  My huge duffle bag?  Oh, uhhh one of the girls suggested we do a clothing exchange. (My friend Mol thought of that one and it worked:O).  As soon as I walked into the hotel room, Kate offered champagne which I happily accepted and helped to calm my nervous.  The three of us (Kate, myself and Sarah-the hair/MU artist) chatted for an hour or so while I got primped and then we had the shoot.  It was really fun and Kate was awesome to work with!  Afterwards, I was nervous about my excuse for coming home with a full face of makeup and glammed up hair…but luckily Ben was already in bed.  Shortly after, I received the pic files from Kate and was thrilled with them!  She did an amazing jobs and captures some great shot! I made a photobook via Mixbook.com for Ben, which he loved ;O) 

The book's cover; which was suggested by Kate

and I'll also share the first page of the book since there's not much to it. The sign was my idea and I love how it turned out:

otherwise, like the cover say's... the rest is for Ben's eyes only :O)