our renewal
This is a repost I wrote on our family blog to tell about the surprise renewal my husband planned for us and just to give you a warning, this is going to be a LONG post. The next few, many, paragraphs is an attempt to do justice the amazingness that was Saturday, May 31, 2014. I already know that my words will not be enough. If I was a better writer maybe I could come close, but there will be no way I have the vocabulary or ability to explain what my heart felt when I crested a hill and saw a dream come to life.
Saturday started normally, or at least what I thought of as normal but it was all part of a master well thought out plan. My parents were in town to stay with us for a couple days before they drove to Virginia for their hiking vacation. I was woken up way too early, made breakfast for the boys, and watched our normal morning shows of MLB Whip Around and Curious George. School had just ended for us all and Rebekah, a friend who moved away last fall, was in town for the weekend so a group of girls were getting together for lunch and a nails date. Rebekah came to get me under the ruse of wanting to spend some extra time together in the car before we met up with everyone. Obviously that was a big fat lie but hopefully there was truth in there as well ;)
Lunch was great. We went to a new smoothie and sandwich place and just chatted about whatever girls chat about when they finally get a chance to hang out. We headed over to get our nails done and had an awesome time laughing and talking across the room as the six of us sat there with our feet in bubbly water. There's a good chance we annoyed everyone else there but sometimes that just needs to happen. Zach had told me a couple days before that he was taking me on a surprise trip for a couple days for our anniversary so I was telling them about that as well. Looking back it's amazing how skillful these ladies are at giving up no information.
On the way to take me home Rebekah said she forgot her wallet at Grace's the day before when she cut her hair so we were going to stop by "real quick" so she could pick it up. So after hugging everyone goodbye and hearing many "have a great trip" we headed out to go "pick up a wallet." I was standing in the living room waiting for Grace to finish giving her a tour of whatever when Morgan comes walking in the kitchen followed by Leslie and then Lisa. Grace and Rebekah came back in the living room and I was just staring at them trying to figure out why the heck they came back too.
SURPRISE!
I'm pretty sure the first words after we have a surprise for you was Lisa saying oh my gosh I'm so glad this is finally here it was killing me.
I was informed that I needed to not worry, the boys were fine and I was to relax because this was the kick off to our anniversary trip. I needed to spend the afternoon with the girls, get ready and then later Zach was going to come pick me up for dinner and a 10th anniversary sunset photoshoot.
For the next threeish hours they showed me three different dresses that Zach, with their help, had picked out and had fun bossing me around while I tried on different dress, shoe and jewelry combinations. Bless my husband's heart he had thought of pretty much everything including my entire jewelry drawer that he just took out of my dresser and put in the car. I ended up choosing this awesome white eyelet dress from Anthropologie because it fit the best and let's face it, it was from Anthropologie and I wasn't sure if I'd ever have another opportunity to get a dress from there. They are not cheap!
After the dress was picked, Grace did my hair and make up and she's seriously just amazingly skilled. I loved it all. In between the getting ready and waiting there was more fun talk, a little drinking and some crossfit games watching. Don't all girls do that together?
I was pretty excited and nervous the entire afternoon. Suspense pretty much is the worst thing for me so the waiting for Zach had me in a very first date butterfly mode and I had a feeling there was still something I was not being told. Shortly before Zach got there it started thundering and pouring and I asked Leslie if she thought Zach was freaking out over the rain. The looks that passed between them all were not ones of confidence.
Zach showed up around 5:30 and I just sat on the couch as our five chaperones demanded that he come to the door to get me. We took a couple of cute pictures and they loaded all the stuff in that Zach had lugged over earlier back into his car. I hugged everyone good bye...again. and headed out with my hubs who was looking all handsome in some khakis and a white shirt while I was dressed in a white dress. I'm pretty sure that I commented on the fact that we matched and looked a little ridiculous but that since he looked hot it was ok.
We went to dinner at Las Flores and in the midst of him being a little anxious and checking his phone literally every five seconds to look at the weather, had a fun time. We got their super yummy house margaritas, chips and dip and split a quesadilla and talked. I have NO CLUE what we talked about. Like seriously I remember none of it. My stomach was in knots trying to figure out if there was anything else going on and he just alternated in between looking at my phone and telling me I was gorgeous. Shortly before we left an older lady came up to our table to tell my my ring was beautiful and congratulations. HA! We did totally look like we had just gotten married in our all white and me done up like it was prom. We just told her thank you :)
He said he had found a cool place in Covington to take pictures and had rented a nice lens for Reilly who was going to do the photoshoot. She is a wonderful and talented young lady who goes to church with us and helped us with our family photoshoot last fall. She also happens to be an amazing babysitter. We passed a car dealership and then all of a sudden he off roads it up this hill on the way to a field and I saw Reilly standing at the top. I couldn't believe he had made a 15 year old wait in a field in the rain by herself just so we could get pictures taken.
When we got out of the car he looked at me and said that there was a little more to the surprise then I thought. That's when I saw a person crawling behind a hay bale and I got really confused. I wish I could remember his exact words, but they were along the line of He knows we had talked about a vow renewal at some point but didn't want to stress me out with details, so he just planned one himself. Then we walked a few more feet up the hill and all of a sudden I saw a white arbor in the middle of a beautiful field and rows upon rows of people. Leslie later said that I squealed which doesn't surprise me. I just started crying and walking and looking. I kept spotting more friends who had come from in town and out of town, both of our families who had driven from Alabama, south and north Georgia, and South Carolina, and our sweet boys all dressed up in their khakis and white shirts.
The closer I got the more people I could see and randomly started waving and crying some more. Then I heard the music that was playing and saw Mike and Lindsay, our previous worship leader and dear friends, singing one of his songs that we absolutely love called I love you still. As I walked down the aisle with Zach and the boys I was stopped by Rebekah, Morgan, Leslie, Lisa, my mom and Zach's mom in turn to hand me daisies that became a bouquet. At one point someone handed me a tissue which was sorely needed.
We made our way to the front and Dave began our ceremony. It was beautifully specific to
us. Seven of our couple friends did readings of some of our favorite verses. Those truths have been such an integral part of my last year.
