1 Year Celebrations

Back at the Wentworth

Arthur and I had lots of ideas on how we might celebrate our first year of wedded bliss.  Way back, many many months ago we contemplated a Europe trip (French Riviera/Northern Italy?) towards the end of May to celebrate both Arthur's 30th birthday and our 1st anniversary.  But that idea went out the window with the whole pregnancy thing.  Then we went the other way, not really wanting to make a big deal of it, given all the traveling & fun we'd already done this year - maybe it would be a good, practical thing to get ourselves a new iMac (we've been thinking about getting a "family" computer for awhile now - we both still have our computers from college that are barely hanging on).  While I would really like a new iMac to play with, something about a "practical" 1st anniversary present didn't sit right with either of us. Does that set a bad precedent for the rest of the anniversaries?  Aren't we supposed to be doing all sorts of romantic things now before the baby comes?  We finally settled on the following, absolutely perfect anniversary celebrations.

Our actual anniversary fell on a Monday this year, so we kept that day low key.  Dinner at home together, followed by our 1 year old wedding cake.  

1 year old wedding cake

Little confession - we didn't save our entire cake top.  We brought the top home from the wedding, put it in the fridge, then got caught up in glow of being married and leaving for our honeymoon the next day.  Went on our honeymoon, came back, and oops, we never froze the cake.  So we just cut a piece for the freezer and ate the rest.   Best idea ever.  1 year old cake, while better than I expected, is still 1 year old.  I'm glad we enjoyed most of it while it was fresh. 

I also made cupcakes just in case the cake was gross.  So the next day Arthur's co-workers got to celebrate our anniversary too!  24 cupcakes for 2 people are wayyy too many, even when preggers.

We also pulled out our gorgeous wedding album and watched our wedding video.  Now the wedding video was a fairly last minute addition.  Both Arthur and I wanted amazing photos, so we allocated a significant portion of our budget to get the photographers we wanted, and had decided to forgo the video.  My day-of-coordinator asked me if I had one and offered to recommend a few because she said not having a video is the #1 regret she hears from brides.  I was pretty against adding one so we could stick to our budget, but then my Mom went and surprised us with it!  It's so nicely done and I can't wait to watch it with our little miss!

For our actual anniversary celebration, we decide to go back to the location of our magical wedding weekend, Wentworth by the Sea Hotel.  We cashed in some of our Marriott points and lived it up in the Admiral's Suite - an amazing 2 story suite in the center turret of the hotel.  360 degree views of New Castle, the harbor, and Portsmouth.  Gorgeous! 

Arthur in the Admiral's Suite

Private entrance for the turret rooms

View from the room

View from the room

View from the room

 We spent a leisurely afternoon enjoying the resort, watching another wedding, checking out the pool, and wandering around the marina.  It was so fun to just soak in all the beauty of New Castle and reminisce about our wedding.  The weather was perfect too - very similar to our weekend, just a few degrees warmer.

Wentworth Marina

Wentworth Marina

Little Harbor

Little Harbor

Hello 29 weeks!

 After our leisurely afternoon, we got ready for dinner in Portsmouth.  When we were scouting the area for rehearsal dinner venues, we went to like every restaurant in the greater Portsmouth area!  While none worked out for our rehearsal dinner (held instead at the Stage Neck Inn in York Harbor, ME), we knew we wanted to come back and actually eat at some of the fun places we'd found.  We decided on the Wellington Room - a cute little place tucked into a renovated mill with beautiful river views.  

29 weeks, take 2

Arthur with our Turret

Dinner @ the Wellington Room

Anniversary Mouse - yum!

After dinner we headed back to the Wentworth for real dessert - new wedding cake!  Our cake was so yummy we went back to Jacques Pastries and they re-created our cake top for us.  It was even tastier than I had remembered.

Cake with the toasting flutes from our wedding

Hanging out in the turret sitting room

Post cake cutting (with our cake cutting song playing, of course!)

The next morning we finished our celebrations with late checkout and the Wentworth's decadent Bubbles & Jazz Brunch, held in the Grand Ballroom - the same place our reception was held. 

Bubbles & Jazz Brunch

Bubbles & Jazz Brunch

  The perfect end to a wonderful getaway.  Our wedding venue was so perfect for us, and I love that we can go back year after year and remember the start of our lives together.

1 Year Ago

June 4, 2011

1 year ago today I married my love.  It was a glorious day with blue skies, a gorgeous venue, delicious food, beautiful flowers, lots of friends & family and a very happy and in love bride & groom.  A year’s worth of planning came together almost perfectly (so in terms of weddings – perfectly).  Even more important than our wonderful wedding was the amazing year that followed.  To recap:

After our wedding we jetted off to French Polynesia for an incredible honeymoon.  We spent a few nights in an overwater bungalow, took a 7 day cruise exploring various islands, saw the most beautiful underwater life during our six dives including sharks!, ate scrumptious cuisine, and both got some serious travel’s tummy.  Travel’s tummy while confined to a cruise ship is quite a contrast to the beautiful bride & groom from the wedding.  For better or worse! 

Our cruise ship in French Polynesia

We came home from honeymoon feeling off and I was convinced we had made a honeymoon baby.  Arthur bought a pregnancy test that I take in a Mexican restaurant during our 12 hr layover in LA.  Turns out no honeymoon baby, just food baby, but both of us are very surprised that we weren't more relieved to see the “not pregnant”.  The seed is planted that perhaps we both are way more ready for a baby than we had thought.

Not Pregnant

After the honeymoon we worked…a lot.  I can’t remember having a weekday dinner together once from July – September!   We did go to Martha’s Vineyard for the 4^th of July, went to a couple more weddings, celebrated Mercedes’ 1^st birthday, went to the annual Lobsterboat Races in Bristol ME, started looking at houses in Maine, and planned a few trips for when work settled down. 

Mercedes turns 1!

September brought a weekend in Philadelphia.   We caught up with friends and did some sightseeing.  We redecorated the master bedroom.  

Philadelphia

Puerto Rico

In November we went to Puerto Rico for a long weekend that neither of us really took the time to plan and decided we much prefer planned trips.  We talked about having a baby & decided to stop trying to prevent one.  In December we went to Argentina & Brazil, made a baby, and bought a house in Boothbay Harbor, ME.  On Christmas Eve we told our parents they were going to be grandparents in August!  We rang in 2012 in Iceland. 

Argentina

Boothbay Harbor House

New Year's Eve in Iceland

Arthur spent the winter working lots both at work and on the Boothbay house.  

Arthur the expert painter

Not happy about my mask

It's a girl!

 I did much 1^st trimester napping and tons of baby reading &   research.  At the end of March we found out we were having a girl!  In April we spent a week relaxing in Jamaica on our babymoon.

Jamaica

Happy 30th!

  In May I threw Arthur a very successful surprise 30^th birthday party.  We ended our first year with 3 weekends in a row in Maine and another wedding.

All in all, an amazing, action packed year.  In some ways it still feels like we are in the honeymoon stage (especially when traveling), and in others it feels like we’ve been married for years.  Except for some seriously long work hours, it’s been a really wonderful year.  I’m pretty sure the whole “first year is the hardest” did not apply (why do they say that?).  Somehow I think adjusting to life with a newborn is going to be a little bit more challenging than this past year, but I’m really looking forward to the next family focused (and maybe quieter?) years with my love.