Half a Decade!

This might be a long post - but remember - I'm printing my blog into books for us and our kids to be able to go back through in the future. :)

Matt and I celebrated our FIVE year anniversary on Saturday, June 23. 

I can't believe it's been that long since we had our (mostly) dream wedding. 

That day was so fun (besides the Plague that struck the week before, week of, day of, and week after our wedding. Sigh.). We had a blast though - 

Earlier in that week Matt and I rented a white 300 limo and took some of our good friends and family out for a night on the town - SUCH a blast!!

The day before our wedding was Matt's birthday, our rehearsal, and our rehearsal dinner with our ENTIRE families at The Milky Way downtown. We are still so sad that this restaurant closed because it was one of our favorites. We ate delicious food, delicious cake, drank too much wine, and hung out with our best friends and our extended families and had a blast. 

The day of our wedding my cousin and Maid of Honor, Amy, and I headed out bright and early and did all the normal wedding things with my wedding party - drank Mimosas, got our hair and make up done, and set up things for the wedding! 

Just some fun little facts about our wedding - 

-It took place on the roof of the CW Moore Plaza. It was a beautiful location over looking downtown Boise. It's urban, hip, and awesome - just like us. ;)  

-Kanak Attack catered and we still track them down at Art in the Park every year to eat their food! DELISH! 

-Takes the Cake made our cake - and we still find several reasons every year to have her do cakes for us! :) Our flavors were mint chocolate chip, Oreo, and lemon poppy seed with raspberry filling. 

-The bridal party walked down the aisle to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's Hawaiin version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I walked down to the instrumental version of You are Beautiful by James Blunt. Our first dance was to  and Matt took my garter off to Pour Some Sugar On Me. :) 

-We danced and danced and danced the night away and had SO much fun. 

-We spent our wedding night at the Anniversary Inn. The next day we went to my parents house and opened all our gifts with our families! The day after that we headed to Riviera Maya, Mexico for the absolute, most amazingly perfect honeymoon ever where we relaxed, swam with dolphins, got tans, ate way too much food, and drank just as many delicious drinks! 

Rewind 9 years ago...

.........

Matt and I met in the Albertson's in Caldwell near my college. He was there with his friend and I was there with mine. We didn't know each other, but I knew his friend (Andrew) and we decided to all hang out later that night. From then on we were mostly inseparable. Matt "wooed" me for a few months - he would come over to my apartment, hang out, etc. We had Trashy Date Night Tuesdays where we'd eat fast food and watch trashy reality TV. Too fun. We officially started dating on December 19, 2003. We moved in together 6 months later and the rest is history. :) He proposed on December 17, 2005. We were married on June 23, 2007. 

In our time together we've lived with his parents, in two apartments in the North End, owned a house, and rented two other houses. We have added two dogs and two babies to the family. We now have 3 nephews and a niece. Matt will have watched every one of my siblings graduate high school when Cami graduates next year and has watched them all grow up. I was at his sisters wedding 8 years ago. His family was at my college graduation, and mine at his. We've been through jobs, friends, and so many changes together. It's kind of crazy to type it out and wonder what I would have done through all of that without him. I'm glad to have him to share all those memories with and there's no one I'd rather it be. We still joke about our first Christmas together when a very young Spencer spied on us and caught us kissing goodbye. :)

I tried finding pictures from the night we met, and I can see the box they're in, but it would be a nightmare to get it out! So just trust that we were cute, and YOUNG.

Thanks Matt, for a fun, crazy, unpredictable, and zany 5 married years, and here's to 50 more. 

I freaking love us. 

Some of my favorite pictures from our wedding:

 This is our fish dance - Matt catches me, and is clearly very proud of it.

 I have always loved this picture, but right now can't get over how much Cadon looks like Quinn here!

 Knew my Daddy would be a ball of emotion during the Father/Daughter dance - so as soon as What A Wonderful World ended, Baby Got Back blasted and we got down! 

 It's a good thing we found each other - not many people are quite as amazing at dancing as we are. Don't be too jealous. We know we're fabulous. ;)

 Mom and Dad dancing to Usher's "Yeah" - my mom's favorite song at the time!

 Still one of my favorite pictures - Jake (who married us), Matt, and Andrew - such good friends since their teenage years.

THEN: 

NOW: 

Again - my twist tie ring, promise ring, engagement ring, and family ring :)

We had a really fun anniversary this year!

Saturday morning we packed up the kids and headed to the Farmers Market for the first time this year. (We're slackers!)

We ate lunch at Brick Oven with our two favorite people - P and Q!

 On our way back to trying to track down the car we passed CW Moore - where we got married! Someone else will be sharing our anniversary as a wedding was all set up up there!

 After naps, etc., we took the kids to Nana and Papa's and headed out on our date night! 

We went to dinner at Murphy's which was SO good. We hadn't been there since before I was pregnant with Paiton, and it was just as delicious as we remembered! Then we really wanted to go see Rock of Ages but it was only playing at 6 and 10 pm! :( So instead we went to Pinz and had a drink and then played around at Boondocks! 

 As were leaving dinner Matt got these pictures from Papa on his phone:

The kids were having fun and eating whipped cream! 

At Boondocks We played a game that we've been playing together for years because it's just so cheesy and fun (and childishly easy - which is what I need, and yet I still manage to die first!)

 Then we did batting cages! It was so fun, I LOVE batting cages!

 My left handed husband can switch hit!! Such a stud!

                               

Then it was time for mini golf!! Let's just say I lost. By a lot.

 Fireball at the end! We both missed this shot, so I had to take a picture of the kid in front of us making it go off, haha!

Thanks for a super fun anniversary Matt, and thanks for watching the kids so we could go out Mom and Dad (and thanks for letting P have a slumber party!) Thanks to everyone for the anniversary wishes, cards, and presents! We feel so loved!! It's so nice to hear family members remember our special day, and so many friends comment on facebook to wish a happy anniversary and just say nice things! It's such a good reminder of who our good and true friends are that care about us and our family! :)

Family Pictures 2012

We had family pictures done a few weeks ago and I was super nervous for how they'd turn out since Paiton cried the majority of the time.
Go see the sneak peek here:
http://ckgblog.net/the-locke-family-boise-family-photographer/

When I get the CD I'll do an actual post of them :)

Utah Trip!

Last week we got to take a "working vacation" to Utah! I had been hired to shoot a wedding at the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City on Thursday, and the reception in Nampa, Idaho on Friday.

We decided to make a little family vacation of it and Matt took off Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we headed down!! 

These first few pictures are actually from before we left - Quinn's favorite past time is pulling out DVD's as fast as he can!! He's doing so great army crawling around, we're SO proud of him!! 

 Paiton was so tired one day that this is how I found her as I unbuckled Q from his carseat!

 Quinn's bed head! He worked hard on that look all night!

 I forgot to post this with the Father's Day post - I made Matt and the grandpa's key chains. This is Matt's!

 Here we go! About to head out Wednesday morning to Utah!

 One of the (many) things we learned on a road trip with the kids is that Quinn apparently gets very car sick! He cried for about two hours at the beginning of the trip, and then promptly threw up EVERYWHERE. I mean, really - it was man sized vomit. He was covered from head to toe and so was his carseat and it stunk so bad! We had to pull over, strip him down, give him a wet wipe bath, change his clothes, and I had to tear apart the car seat and clean the entire thing before we could continue on. Yikes!! Not good!

As we were driving Matt and I spotted this. From far away we thought it was a fire but as we got closer we realized it was a little tornado! It might not look like much in the pictures but it was pretty big and kind of scary! It was coming our direction and in fact the car we passed going the opposite direction got scared and pulled over to wait for it pass! We were in awe of it! Matt said everyone would probably be like "That's just a dust devil!" but it really wasn't! It was crazy!

 As we drove past it, it was kind of nerve wracking!

 Finally in the hotel!!

 Of course the first thing the kids wanted to do was swim!!

 Wednesday was spent swimming after we got there. Papa was in SLC for work too so we met up with him for lunch. There were a couple Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives restaurants we wanted to try so that night we went to Lone Star Taquiera - Mexican food, it was ok, nothing too great. Then we went back to the hotel and swam some more!

 Taking a rest

 Sweet loves

 Paiton, of course, insisted on having her picture taken with this statue outside of our hotel

 Good morning babies!

 Breakfast in bed

Thursday morning we got up and headed to City Creek Mall. It's this awesome outdoor mall. It has lots of water features, cool stores (think H&M, Tiffany's, a 2 story Forever 21, etc!) and walked around. Then we HAD to head to In N Out for lunch!!  

After lunch we had to HUSTLE back to the Temple so I could shoot the wedding. I have to brag here for a minute - Matt gets Dad of the Year award for this one. It was HOT - the sign I saw said 97 degrees. I was sweating to death shooting this wedding, and poor Matt and the kids just had to walk around and wait for me to get done. He got them snacks and drinks, played in the shade, walked through the mall, etc. I'm SO thankful I had him there to do that with the kids. I had SEVERAL people comment to me how amazing he is with them and how awesome it was he could do that and keep them that happy for that long in the heat! He is awesome and the kids sure do love their Dad. I know it wasn't easy, but he said he had fun with them, and they were happy for all that time, so he must be some sort of magician!! Thanks Matt, you flippin rock!!!

Here's one pic from the wedding: 

 

After that we headed to the Hogle Zoo! 

I wish it would have been a LOT cooler - the zoo was really awesome and so fun, but kind of miserable - we were all so sweaty and hot!

 Paiton was so happy to see elephants, since our stupid zoo doesn't even have any!

 Luckily they had misters set up all over the zoo to cool off. Quinn loved them so much! I think he would have been happy just standing in front of one for hours! They blew really cold water at you and Quinn kept getting so wet because we had to stop at every one and hold him up!

 Getting misted!

 Of course Paiton wanted to ride the Merry Go Around - for the first time ever she was brave enough to ride an animal that goes up and down, instead of sitting on the stationary bench!! ;) She chose the dolphin and I stood beside her - so fun!

 After the zoo we went to another D,D,&D restaurant - Ruth's Diner. We met Papa there and there was live music. It was fun!

 After dinner Papa brought his bathing suit and came swimming with the kids - which P was SO happy about!

 Quinn is a fish. He has zero fear of water. He'll dunk his head right in and come up gasping for air!! He just splashes like crazy and doesn't ever want to stop or take a break!

 He kept doing this to make me laugh! Silly boy!

I do have to brag on my most amazing children for a minute. The first night Paiton got homesick and was kind of a wreck going to sleep - poor girl takes after her mama and prefers to be at home! I was SUPER nervous about how Quinn would sleep away from home. We set up his pack n play, his sound machine, and the video monitor, just like at home. Turned on the sound, turned off all the lights, and put him to bed while we quietly watched TV. He did FANTASTIC!! Both nights he went right to sleep without so much as a whimper and slept past 8 both mornings - a first for him in his little life!! Also Matt and I were discussing how we can't even count the number of times that people went completely out of their way to come up to us and tell us how beautiful our kids are!! Our trip was pure, nonstop, go go go, madness. Neither kid got a nap any of those three days, but were still SO good. They are so well behaved (insert pat on Matt's and my back here ;)) and such troopers! It was way too much fun to be packed into that little time, but we did it and can't wait for our next adventure!! 

Friday morning we got up and headed home. Friday was also Matt's 28th birthday! Happy birthday to the most rockin' husband and dad ever! We love you to bits and pieces babe!! Unfortunately he spent his bday in the car with us for 6 hours, then I had to leave for 5+ hours to shoot a reception. :/ Paiton kept telling him over and over on the drive home "Happy Birthday birthday boy!" It was so sweet! 

The kids and Matt hung out at his parents house while I shot and had a little birthday fun! :)

More to come on this, but this is kind of a fun picture to share. Saturday was our five year wedding anniversary and I took this picture. About 8+ years ago Matt gave me the "ring" on the left - made out of a twist tie - and promised to marry me one day. 8 years ago on our one year dating anniversary he gave me the next ring - my promise ring. 7 years ago on December 17, 2005 he gave me my ridiculously gorgeous engagement ring, and then after Paiton was born he gave me my family ring, on the far right.  

Awww. :) More to come on anniversary V!!! :)