Ignore the dorky voice in the background asking questions.

Also photos of our weekend have been uploaded.

After dinner, we opened our gifts.  The traditional first anniversary gift is paper.  I had decided to get Chad some gift certificates to the movie theater because he really likes movies and I just don’t care all that much to go to them.  Little did I know they had joined the modern world and now have gift cards.  So, it wasn’t paper, but I still gave it to him and let him know I would go see whatever he wants.  The real gift I was excited to give him was still part of the paper theme.  I purchased a picture frame and got a large matte cut for it.  I had a black and white picture of our wedding rings printed and put it in the frame, and I had someone (with better handwriting then me) write our vows on the matte.  I had been wanting to have something with our vows on it for a while, and this was the idea I came up with.  I think it will be nice to have them displayed so we can seee them and remember them.  We didn’t actually write them ourselves, but we did pick them, so they are special to us.  I also believe that we should honor our vows, and the best way to do that is to know what they are.  It will be nice to have a reminder around.  Chad really liked his gifts.

Then, it was my turn.  I opened my paper gift, which was Scrabble Slam, a new card game.  I had seen the commercials and it looked like a good time.  We played that night, and it was pretty fun.  He also got me the game Partini.  The cards in it are paper, but he really just got it because, on the way to picking up Scrabble Slam, he noticed it was on sale.  Along with the traditional, Chad also gave me the modern first anniversary gift, which is clocks.  He found a cute math clock, which I’m sure will annoy the heck out of my students at school and bring me minutes of delight.

The frame I gave Chad came in handy because after exchanging gifts, we exchanged (or renewed, I guess) our vows again.  Then, after dancing to our wedding song in our living room, we ate the top layer of our wedding cake.  Actually, it was a replica of the top layer of our wedding cake.  We didn’t save ours.  I thought there wouldn’t be enough for the guests if we did, and I was totally wrong.  Anyway, I wanted to still celebrate this tradition, so I had Walmart recreate it for us with the same design and everything as before.  It looked just like it, but it was fresher and a little bigger.  I can’t say I regret not saving the original.

I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed my wedding day, but that was only the begining of the best year of my life (so far).  I have been truly blessed to have a wonderful husband who loves me and is amazing to me everyday.  Thank you so much, Chad, and happy one year anniversary!  I hope I can spend the rest of our many years together making you as happy as you have already made me.  I love you!

On Saturday, we got up and headed to the Nashville Zoo.  I had never been, and Chad hadn’t been in a few years.  It was a pretty warm day, but it wasn’t too hot to walk around and check out all the animals.

My favorite part was the Lorikeet exhibit.  Lorikeets are a kind of parrot.  They were in a free-flying exhibit, so you are warned that they might land on you.  I bought a cup of nectar for $1 to feed them, and was able to get a lorikeet to come and drink from my cup right away.  Later, I stuck out my arm and waited.  After about a minute or so, a lorikeet landed on my hand and drank the nectar from the cup.  It was pretty neat.

After the zoo, we went to the Parthenon because I had never been there before.  It is a replica of the original Parthenon in Athens.  We took a quick little self-guided tour before heading back to the hotel.  It looked like they were going to have a wedding or some event there that evening because they were already setting up.

That evening, we had a reservation at the Melting Pot.  Once again, I had never been there.  It was a neat experience as we cooked our own food in a fondue pot.  We had a four course meal of cheese fondue, a salad, an arrangement of meats, and chocolate fondue.  I have to admit that my favorite part was the dessert.  We got milk chocolate to dip strawberries, rice krispy treats, brownies, cheesecake, bananas, pound cake, and marshmallows.  Yum!  It was fantastic!  I wasn’t overly impressed with the rest of the dinner, but the dessert was fantastic.  I definitely want to go back.

The  next day was our actual anniversary day.  More to come on that later…