Ah, September. It’s my favorite month! A lot is happening for me during the month of September. First of all, it’s my birthday month. I was born on the 17th and sometimes my birthday falls on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, but usually not. As a child, I always looked forward to September to celebrate my birthday. I would look forward to it months in advance. So far in advance that my parents would tell me that I’m not allowed to talk about my birthday until a few months before it! I started school young, so I’m always the youngest in my grade. Everybody reached their milestones before I did. But, to my advantage, I am the last of my friends to reach the Big 3-0 birthday! I’m looking forward to my birthday, but not so much the turning 30 part. If being the youngest wasn’t enough, I also look really young for my age. I still get carded for rated R movies, and always at the liquor store. Once, in college, an airport security worker asked if I was in middle school when I was with my mom. Crazy. I’m not THAT young looking!
Secondly, September is the month I got engaged. People who know my husband and I know that I waited a LONG time for that proposal! 7 years to be exact. My husband (then boyfriend) and I moved in together in the summer of 2011. We had been dating since junior year of college and were twenty when we met and first got together. Then, after graduation, my husband did the prosthetics program at Northwestern University in Chicago and had to go on site for 3 months in addition to a 6 month prior online program. He moved back home after he graduated from the program and began his residency. He went on to take boards and become certified and licensed in prosthetics. I lived with roommates for a while and then eventually we moved in together.
I knew the engagement was coming, but I didn’t know he was proposing that day. He picked up my ring on September 11, 2012 but decided 9/11 was not a good day to propose. So, he proposed on September 12 in our apartment after I had gotten home from work. I was so happy and my ring was gorgeous! We started planning our wedding, and set the date a couple weeks later. I set the date around my Rabbi’s schedule. We probably would have gotten married in the beginning of October if Rabbi had been available then. He wasn’t, so we decided on September 29, 2013. When we chose our venue, we made sure they had that date available and booked it during the tour. We had already been to the venue before at a friend’s wedding and knew it was going to be perfect. We got married at Villa Christina in Perimeter area in Atlanta, Georgia. I highly recommend that venue. Everything was perfect and I loved our event coordinator, Julie!
Wedding planning was so much fun! Read more about my wedding plans here and here. Read my advice for newlyweds here. We went on the perfect honeymoon to Kauai, Hawaii and it was amazing.
For our first anniversary, my husband and I went on a road trip from San Francisco to Vancouver, Canada and back. It was very rushed, as we did it all in 6 days. But, we still had a great time and saw very cool sights. We wine tasted in Napa, Drove through a redwood tree in the redwood forest, went to a rose garden and Powell’s City of Books in Portland, went to Pike Place Market and Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, and spent time in Stanley Park in Vancouver. You can read about our first anniversary trip here.
On the day of our first anniversary, we went to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant called Chequers. The next day, we picked up our anniversary wedding top of the cake from our cake lady Eileen Carter. She tells the brides and grooms to go ahead and eat the top of their cake after the honeymoon and then makes a replica of the top of the cake for all her client’s first anniversaries! It’s such a nice thing to do. The cake usually doesn’t taste so good after being in a freezer for a year, so that’s why she does this.
This year, we are not going on a lavish anniversary vacation. We had a nice vacation in the spring where we spent a week in Las Vegas. So, this year, we decided to take the day off work and spend time together doing something fun in Atlanta. We decided to go to Fernbank, an interactive science museum. I used to go there on field trips in elementary school, but I think it will be nice to go back as an adult. We plan on going to see one of the IMAX movies there and enjoy the exhibits. Then, for dinner, we will dine at Villa Christina’s restaurant. We have never gone there for dinner before and can’t wait! From what we tasted at our wedding tasting and the food they made for our wedding, it will be a gourmet treat!
My husband and I have been keeping up with the tradition of giving the customary anniversary gifts to each other in addition to something each of us had wanted. The first anniversary gift is paper and the second anniversary gift is cotton. We use Amazon.com with lists so that we know we are getting each other what we want. It works out really well for us.
There’s a lot to look forward to this month. I will be having several birthday celebrations with friends, family and my husband. My mom is coming in town for my big birthday and I’m really excited to see her!
Here’s to many more years of birthdays and anniversaries in September!
pieces of april blog 