4th Anniversary!

Yesterday Daniel & I celebrated 4 years of marriage! I had a great time updating Facebook throughout the day yesterday with pictures and time stamps of where I was on my wedding day. I won't use this public platform to share my heart about how much I love my husband but I WILL share how we celebrated!

Since our actual anniversary fell on a week day, we had our 'official' celebration last Sunday. After dropping Isaiah off with my parents we went to Carrabba's for dinner. (Many thanks to Tina J. for the gift card!) I LOVE Carrabba's. Their bread is so amazingly GOOD! While dining over crab fonduta, sirloin marsala, & cavatappi amatriciana we reconnected and reminisced about the last 4 years. After dinner we went to Washington Park in Over the Rhine for the CSO Lumenocity concert event. It was SO cool. The park was JAM PACKED but the event was incredible. If they ever do this again, we will be there.

Music Hall all lit up!

One of the things I love about Daniel is that he's open to me and my conversation questions. He is a great conversationalist and really thinks about the leading questions I ask.  But... like most couples (I would guess) we don't always do a great job of having deep, meaningful conversations when we've got the chance. So, thinking ahead I printed out conversation starters for us to ask on our date.
Lame? Maybe. Effective? 100 PERCENT!!!! 

Thanks to Pinterest, I found 2 websites with date night questions already written. I printed them out, cut them into strips, and dumped them in a ziplock bag. Then at dinner when there was a lull in the conversation, I sheepishly pulled out my ziplock bag, explained the game, and read a question.

Question #1: If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
But Daniel's answer was Cincinnati so he revised the question.
Question #1 Revised: If you could live in 5 cities (2 foreign, 3 domestic) where would it be and why?
The "why" part of the question led to some interesting conversation because justifying the city made the answer more interesting.
Question #2: What do you consider your skills?
We liked that this question  used the word "skills" instead of "strengths" because we had to think about our answer through a different lens.
Question #3: What 10 things do you want to be remembered for?
This one was HARD! It was tough to think of 10 things but 10 meaningful things made it even more tricky.

All in all, my ziplock bag slips of paper idea was a hit. The better the questions became, the closer we got to each other's hearts. We hit on a few more questions that really allowed us to open up and talk through things. Questions like:
Question #4: What concerns do you have that I do not seem interested in?
Question #5: What can I do to show my appreciation of you?
Question #6: What concerns or interests of yours would you like me to support?

If this concept intrigues you, here's where I got my questions:
http://zachterry.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/50-questions-to-ask-your-spouse-on-a-date-night/
&
http://cherishinghopesanddreams.blogspot.com/2012/01/30-things.html

Then, yesterday on our actual anniversary, we celebrated again! Daniel had to play a funeral that evening but he came home with LaRosa's! Meanwhile, I baked chocolate cupcakes (I needed the practice before I attempt to bake 60 cupcakes for Isaiah's birthday party next weekend, I justified.) When he got home we dined on pizza and cupcakes while we watched the video of our wedding. It was perfect. Oh yeah and I might have tried on my wedding dress. You know just to check that it still fits...

Happy  4th Anniversary to us!