Our 2 Year Anniversary Celebration

Our anniversary celebration was all over the place!  Our anniversary was on Tuesday, June 11, but unfortunately, we weren't able to celebrate that day.  Our anniversary celebration was actually split over a few days.  We tried celebrating the following evening but the good ol' Navy called that night, changing things last minute, causing us to cut the anniversary short.  So we continued on the next night, but again, the Navy demanded too much of Nick's time and this was but an hour or so "celebration."  Over the course of the week, we were able to do the few small things we wanted to do.  It really was nothing big, but the military made it impossible to do on one night.

We simply had a fabulous dinner, watched our wedding dvd, shared a bottle of wine, indulged in a delicious cake, and laid on the beach watching the dolphins play in the "sunset" talking about our last two years and what our exciting future will hold.  (I say "sunset" because our weather has been crappy here and it was pretty overcase.)

Watching our Ceremony :)

Our anniversary celebration was low-key and inexpensive because we have a REAL celebration coming in a few weeks.  Nick completely surprised me with his "gift" to me.  If you remember a few posts back, I mentioned that Nick had already planned something for our anniversary weekend.  Unfortunately, he wasn't able to do what he had planned because I was in St. Louis with my Grandpa and family.  Right before I left to go home, Nick handed me my anniversary card.  I was a little confused as to why he was giving it to me so early considering I was coming back two days before our anniversary but I opened it....

"Happy Anniversary Reveal! I owe you one cotton t-shirt of your choice from the gift shop at..."
[cotton is the traditional second anniversary gift]

I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!!!
Now, this might not seem like a big deal to anyone, but it's a HUGE deal to me.  I am Disney OBSESSED!!!!  (I pretty much think I should have been born a Disney Princess).  And, sadly, I've never been to Disney Land or World.  Ever.  I've always wanted to go.  When we moved here, we said that we'd visit Disney World because it's not that far away. Then we put it off thinking we'd be moving to Jacksonville and it's really close to Disney.  Then Nick changed his mind on the type of helo he wants to fly, which does not send us to Jax.  I was sad (for a few reasons) but one being, Disney World.  At this point, we had a little over three months left here.  Unfortunately, we have something happening every single weekend we have left (We have so many various family members coming to visit {YAY}, friends coming in town, friends' wingings, I'm going home for two weeks, etc.)  I had given up hope of going to Disney.  I was pretty bummed but Nick assured me that we could visit Disney Land if we were ever stationed in California or we could always plan a trip with our kids and fly down to it.  BUT NOW I'M GOING!!!!!!!  It was a little hard to find a free weekend but we managed to make it work!!!  Now all we need is for the Navy reapprove his leave for a later weekend.
I seriously love my husband!!!!  Apparently he's been planning and saving for quite some time, knowing he was going to do this.  I couldn't stop thanking him, hugging him, or smiling.  I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!  I get so giddy thinking about getting my picture taken with Belle (my favorite) and the other characters.  I know, I know.  "Melanie, you're 28 years old."  I don't care.  I always have been a little kid at heart and this is no different.  But Nick loves it.
I told him that I felt badly because this is obviously a gift and trip much more for me but he assured me it was for him as well.  He said he loves amusement parks but the real gift will be seeing my face.  One of the reasons he fell in love with me is how much of a kid I am and he loves seeing my eyes light up and my smile when I get in these situations (as he so sweetly wrote about me in my real anniversary card that he gave me on our actual anniversary).   That makes this his gift as well.  I just Love this man!!!

And of course, we had to take our second year anniversary photo. We opted to have our picture taken on base, in front of the static TH-57, the helicopter Nick is currently training on at NAS Whiting Field.  We thought this was appropriate seeing as for our entire second year of marriage, we were in Milton, Florida for Nick's helo training.

Update:  the photo has been hung (sorry for the crappy iPhone quality photo)