Last week Jeff and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary with a trip to Wilmington, NC. Jeff and I love cute southern towns and we've been wanting to venture to Wilmington for quite some time now so we used a gift certificate his parents gave us for Christmas for a bed and breakfast and headed north for a laid back mini vacation.
We stayed at this beautiful bed and breakfast, The Graystone Inn, which we later found out has been in several movies and tv shows including a longtime fav, One Tree Hill. We were 1 of 2 couples staying here so it was quiet and relaxing. It gets 2 thumbs up from Chef Jeff...
Actually I think he was giving his gift a thumbs up. Jeff and I have decided that we need a hobby so I thought taking a cooking class could be a good start. Jeff likes to pretend he's a chef when he helps make dinner so I thought it would be entertaining. Our class is in September. (Stay tuned.)
What was my gift? Glad you asked.
This was my hint. Hmmm lets see.... Oh, a Tiffany's ring. But where is it? Since our anniversary and my birthday are a month apart, Jeff thought it would be a great idea to make me wait 2 weeks to get it. WRONG!!! When we got home I finally nagged him enough to get it...
Don't you love it? I love it. (Thanks Mr.)
Our trip was a nice combination of sleeping, eating, and laughing. After dinner on Wednesday night, we found (thanks to Google) this little place called The Soapbox. It's a laundramat, coffee shop, and lounge. I guess the thought is you can do your laundry have coffee or watch a band or performance. Of course we didn't have any laundry to do (for once) but there was an improv-comedy group performing and they were hilarious! We had a blast.
The next morning we ate a delicious breakfast, went back to sleep and woke up for lunch then explored a little bit until it was time for our dinner plans- a redneck wedding dinner cruise on the Henrietta III.
We really wanted to do the murder mystery dinner cruise but those only sail on Tuesdays so we were left with Bubba and Bobby Jo's (or something like that) wedding. It was entertaining and definitely a break from your usual dinner out but certainly not as funny as the performance the night before. We did, however, learn a little dinner cruise etiquette: Do not plan to introduce your new fiancé to old family friends at a dinner where entertainment is provided. Seems pretty obvious, right? Not to these people.
It's hard to see, but we had been staring for a while and I think the older gentleman was on to us so we had to be quick with the picture. We originally thought the older couple was meeting their son's girlfriend for the first time but we later found out that the older man is a minister (and family friend we think) and the younger couple recently got engaged and wants the older couple to be part of their counseling. They literally talked throughout the entire show until a fellow wedding guest asked to them stop. Really people. A dinner show is not the place to be making introductions. Although the older lady's face was pretty entertaining. I've never seen so many surprised faces come from 1 person.
After the cruise we headed to a fondue restaurant for dessert. It was so delicious we came back the next night for seconds.
Are you drooling? I am!
On Friday we took a Ferry to Bald Head Island, rented a golf cart (cars are not allowed on the island), and went for a leisurely ride. Jeff did a little geocaching. By a little I mean he found 1 and a half because I was a party pooper and didn't like the millions of crabs swarming around me in the woods-marsh area where another one was hidden. (It's a dumb hobby anyway, if you ask me. You don't actually find anything. Doesn't that mean that you are wasting time looking for nothing. I spend a lot of my time looking for actual things; I don't need a hobby that has me wondering around looking for nothing.) Anyway, we headed back to Wilmington, took showers, and ate dinner at a delicious restaurant downtown that I can't remember the name of but it was very yummy.
Jeff and I like to take some type of tour of the places we visit because it's a good way to see places in a relatively short amount of time. We generally like to do Old Town Trolley Tours because they run all day and you can get on and off whenever you want so you basically get to see an entire city and do the things you want to do all in 1 day, and you learn a little history at the same time. Wilmington has a trolley tour but it's a different one so we looked at some of the other tours available. When I saw the Hollywood Walking Tour, I was sold. Our guide showed us many movie and TV scenes but we wanted more and had a little time before we needed to leave so we used Google again (should we ever get another dog, we have decided to name her Google) and got some addresses to other OTH scenes around town. It was very fun and gave us another idea for a new hobby- re-watching every episode of OTH and pointing out all of the places we recognize and have seen in person.
After our self-guided tour of the OTH set, we headed back to Columbia to enjoy dinner at the new Brazilian steakhouse downtown, Cowboys. It wasn't as nice as the other ones we've been to, but still delicious and we will definitely return. That is if we are ever hungry again after all of the food we ate last week.
It was a relaxing and light-hearted trip; the perfect way to end the summer and celebrate 5 years of marriage. My mom asked me recently if it felt like we had been married for 5 years and I said, "YES!". Jeff and I have done a lot in 5 years and there have been some exhausting times (the past few months included) but we've had a lot of fun too. My mom also asked if marriage is what I expected it would be to which I answered, "No. I thought it would be like some long, never-ending date". The date does end when school and work and a baby come into the picture but I love sharing all of these things with Jeff. My mom then asked if I had advice for new wives and I said, "No. I'm still trying to figure it out." Now that I've had some time to think, one thing that I have learned is that no matter how hard I try, I can't change things that Jeff does. Not that I would want to change him, but there are things that he does that annoy me (and things I do that annoy him). No matter what I say or how much nagging I do, my words won't change anything. My prayers do, however. So instead of whining I try to remain calm (not always easy) and say a little prayer for him and me. I've come to find that God's way of handling things is much better than my own. Who knew?!?!
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