9 Years of Love!

Today is July 11th. 12 years ago today Matt and I went on our 1st date. We dined at the ever so lovely Applebee's and then went to see a late movie - Deep Impact. I guess you could say that Matt made a "deep impact" on me that night, because I haven't stopped thinking of him since! And then this past Wednesday was July 7th, our 9 year wedding anniversary. It was an amazing day to say the least ;) We started the day off at Cane Creek. The kids have been dying to go to the beach, but sand and a crawling infant, doesn't sound all that spectacular to me, so we decided to go to the lake and let them play in the sand. We had a great time and it was wonderful to be sitting on a bench getting ready to leave and Carly says, "thank you Dad for taking me here!" It was a well worth day trip!

Carly playing on the playground. They love going to parks.
Me and My 4 monkeys

Daddy and his Chloe!

Feeding the ducks. Finley was so excited to see them. She kept saying, "da da" - close to duck, but her favorite word to say is all done!!

Finley got wore out so she took a nap in the wagon while the big kids were swimming.

Castle building time. I observe all castle construction. Everyone needs a foreman:)

Daddy and his 3 ducklings. They were a little hesitant about fully swimming in the lake. They couldn't see the bottom.

These 2 were beat after a day in the sun and sand. They were snuggling together. They fell asleep within minutes of getting into the car.

We enjoyed spending time with the kiddos all day. Then Matt had big plans for us that evening - that I didn't know about. I knew we were going out to eat. Mom and Dad came over at 5:00 to watch the kids and we went on our voyage. I figured out from his clues that I thought he was taking me on the Catawba Queen. He couldn't believe that I guessed that, but I have been wanting to do that, so it came to mind. They canceled our reservations for it because there wasn't enough couples signed up (it is a dinner cruise around Lake Norman). So he took me to North Harbor Restaurant instead. It was on the lake and it was some place we would definitely never go to with the kids. We had a delicious meal! Then we went to Concord Mills to go to Dave and Busters to play our all time favorite game - AIR HOCKEY!!! And skeeball. We enjoyed the night striving for getting 100,000 points at skeeball. We both got it several times!!! We can now pass away with that checked off our list of lifetime achievements! When we decided to leave, we quickly realized that we parked on the complete opposite side of the mall and they close the mall off so you can't go through it. So we then had a moon lite walk around Concord Mills - which probably took 20 minutes!! It was ok to walk off that hefty dinner. Matt had also surprised me with a night get away at the Embassy Suites. It was weird sleeping without my babies down the hall, but I managed to sleep in until 7:30!! So all in all, we had a spectacular anniversary.