Eight is great// a little anniversary adventure.

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, we went away on a little adventure this week. We got to see one of our new favorite bands, The Head and the Heart, play up in Orange County, so we stayed in a hotel up there and spent the next day enjoying the beach.

Laguna Beach was the backdrop of some of our most special dating memories, so it was fun to reminisce. This was the restaurant we ate at on one of our very first dates and the day we got engaged; it was special to revisit it.

Matt proposed to me on the Top of the World with an elaborate and special proposal; it was fun to revisit that spot as well.

I really can't believe we have been married for eight years. What a crazy twenty year old I must have been to get married so young, but I don't regret a minute of it. As we were eating at the restaurant on the beach, I asked Matt, "Now that you are eight years into marriage, what would you have told your young self all those years ago?" Matt didn't really have an answer, but here's mine. 

Five things I would have told my twenty year old self on my wedding day (lessons I am continually learning still):

1) To be truly known by someone and still loved immensely is an incredible gift. Be grateful always.

2) Seek out and go on adventures together, both big and small.

3) Sometimes it's okay to go to bed angry. Let the small stuff go.

4) Marriage will bring you life's highest highs and lowest lows, but despite the difficult moments, it's so worth it.

5) Celebrate accomplishments and the good things in life together, whether it's simply the end of another school year of teaching or something grander like attaining a master's degree. Life is worth celebrating; celebrate each other and the life you've created together.