10 Years!

  July 24th was our 10 Year Wedding Anniversary!  For starters, here's a picture from our wedding day:

     We haven't changed a bit, huh?  It's been an awesome 10 years and we spent several days celebrating the occasion.
     On Tuesday evening (the 22nd) we drove to Raleigh and ate dinner at Chuy's. They specialize in several different types of Mexican-style food, including NEW Mexican.  Yes, they serve Hatch Green Chile so for New Mexicans living outside of the Land of Enchantment--finding a Chuy's means some pretty good food. Check out their website for more information and locations (http://www.chuys.com/). We were very impressed with the food and it was a great start to our anniversary celebrations.
     After dinner we headed to the Red Hat Amphitheater to see Sara Bareilles in concert. The venue was great. Emily and I both love Sara's music and we were pleased that her live show did NOT disappoint. It was an awesome concert!

Here's a pic from the show:

     After spending the night in Raleigh we got up Wednesday morning and went to the Raleigh LDS Temple. For those who are curious to know more about Temples you can check out some information at the following link:
https://www.lds.org/church/temples?lang=eng

     Emily and I were married in the Albuquerque Temple so it was only fitting that we spent part of our anniversary at our nearest temple for our anniversary.
     After leaving the temple we did a little bit of shopping at Charming Charlie, known by husbands as "Honey, I'll wait in the car and you can spend as much as you like as long as you don't make me go in there."  Being our anniversary I went along and was a pretty good sport.
     After leaving the Raleigh area we headed down to Wilmington for the rest of our trip. We arrived in time for a late lunch at the Shuckin' Shack (www.pleasureislandoysterbar.com/). It was quite possibly the best seafood we've ever eaten, but the service was pretty terrible.
     That evening we went on a sunset kayak tour where they fed us a dinner on the beach.  (Sorry guys, is this the point where I've started showing you up?  Or was that back at Charming Charlie?)

    Wednesday night we stayed at the Greystone Inn--a 100+ year old bed and breakfast in downtown Wilmington. It looks a little something like this:

and this:

     Thursday was beach day.  We took it easy that morning, ate a nice breakfast at the Greystone, then headed to Kure beach. It was great to spend a few hours there with just the two of us. It was our first time since having kids that we were able to be at the beach with just the two of us.
     Speaking of the kids--did I mention yet that my parents and brother Nick came down from Ohio to watch the boys for us during our trip? Thanks, guys!  I know this may be shocking for some people, but we really like our kids so our anniversary trip wouldn't be complete without spending some time with the boys as well so the cherry on top was my parents and Nick driving the boys down so we could spend some time in Wilmington together. And I guess it was ok spending some time with them too ;-) We went to the beach Wednesday afternoon, but it got a little windy so we headed over to the aquarium at Fort Fisher for a while.

After the aquarium we went to Chili's for dinner before crashing at the hotel.
     Friday morning the weather wasn't looking great so we stayed at the hotel and went swimming in their indoor pool before heading home around lunch time.

Here's to our next 10 years together!