annevadaversary & thrift store finds

more often than not, i look young. i usually pull my id out before a waiter asks to see it, because i know they will ask. when most people start to get to know me, it tends to go the same way…

they notice my ring finger and can’t believe i’m already married. then when i throw in the kicker that i’ve been married for 5 years, their eyes open wide and they exclaim, ‘well how old are you!?’

yep, wil and i are youngins. we met young (wil 13, me 12), we fell in love young (wil 13, me 12), started dating young (wil 17, me 16), and married young (wil 21, me 20).

and just saturday we celebrated our fifth anniversary of that wedding day (annevadaversary as wil calls it). i love that we’ve been married for 5 years, but i also love that we’ve been a special part of one another’s lives for 13. i can’t wait for our future kids to hear us retell parts of our story…and when one of them reaches those awkward tween years, for us to tease them that their future spouse might already be in their midst.

due to being so young, our budget each year tends to be small. in the past we’ve kept it simple and sometimes just made a nice dinner at home. but this was a milestone! and it definitely is a blessing to be a part of the food industry…as we dined extremely well at laurelhurst market. it may seem like a cop out to go to wil’s old place of work and not try something new, but with said budget, we had a fabulous meal and a little bit of royal treatment, allowing us to have somewhat of an extravagant dining experience that we could not have recreated at an unfamiliar place.

and that budget usually spills into the gift territory, and this year (among other things that we gifted each other), i wanted to share a really fun, quick thrift store find that i gave to wil.

as our schedules now allow and as the weather progressively gets nicer, we are enjoying on sunny morning coffee dates out on our lawn…we sometimes look at the headlines on the paper, we marvel at our flowers, we talk about work, and we make up stories about all the neighbors in the 2 triplexes across the street. we love our chairs, but with our whole slew of coffee stuff to carry out there (french press, mugs, creamer, etc) we kept borrowing an inside end table to bring out with us…a hassle! i found a funky little metal and glass side table from the salvation army and gave it a fun coat of aqua spray paint to join our chairs.

before: brassy and blech…

after: aqua and awesome…*

paint holds a lot of power in making something yucky into something so cute! and i’m glad i pulled the trigger on a fun bright color, instead of the safe black or brown. i’m trying to figure out what else would look good with a coat of aqua…watch out dogs!

*my attempt at sewing a cozy for a french press. the concept is sound…the execution not so much. anyone know of a good tutorial that allows space for the spout, maybe loose with a drawstring? this was after a night of putting pieces together, taking them apart, frustratedly putting them back together again. trying to make one from scratch. a 60% success i’d say.