Happy Anniversary

to us :)

Anniversaries are a bit like New Year's Eve. You have all those high expectations that it has to be the party of the year. But all we wanted today was to spend some time together and have a relaxing day.
So we went feeding the ducks and geese, had coffee and cheesecake, hung up our love lock again ( you can read more about it here, here and here), MisterT got another ice cream spoon, and we had a sub for dinner.

Was it an ultra-exciting day? No.Was it a perfect day? Absolutely!

8

Eight years ago, on the 8th of January 2005, a young man and woman had their second date. That night, they looked each other deeply into the eyes, and when they kissed for the first time they knew this love would last forever. He moved in the next day.

Three years later, on the 5th of January 2008, the man surprised his girlfriend with a romantic trip to Vienna.
He had secretly arranged a few days off from work for his girl, and boy, did he start to sweat when a few weeks earlier she suggested to buy a bracelet for her sister at Tiffany's. He said "No Sweety, they don't have anything in your price range", and she answered jokingly "Ha, i bet you're afraid they will recognize you because you bought a ring for me". She had absolutely no idea that this was oh so true, and agreed that Tiffany's was not the right place to shop for christmas gifts.
The night in Vienna he went down on one knee and proposed, with the exact same kind of ring she had mentioned in a completely random side note three years ago.

Three years, three months, and three days later, on the 8th of April 2011, they got married at their favorite place: Florida.

And today, on the 8th of January 2012, these two love-birds are celebrating their eight-year anniversary as a couple. This girl is not always easy; she is a grumpy Grinch often times, and yet that man loves her with all his heart and gives her absolutely all and everything he has to give. She is so unspeakably blessed.

Happy 8th, MisterT!
I love you to the moon and back, and to the moon again, and from there as far into the universe as no man has ever been or could ever imagine!
Thank you for being my KPK, my Sweeto and my world!

A city tour and our love lock

Today i wanted to share a few photos from our city tour some weeks ago. The operative word is "wanted", because the moment i pushed my camera's shutter for the first time, it said " no memory card". Whaaaat????
Yeah, that stupid, brainless, idiotic blogger forgot to remove the camera's memory card from her laptop.
The camera does not have an internal memory, and we had both left our mobile phones at home. So no photos of the only city tour we ever made after having lived here for more than seven years. A tour that costs 20€ per person. No photos of the only time we ever crossed the "bridge of fear" ( as we call it).
Man, we had luxury seats in the front row of the uper deck of a double decker. BAWL!
I was devastated for a few minutes, but then decided to let go and simply enjoy the day with my sweeto.

This is a photo of the map of the tour we made:

You can see the bridge in the lower left corner. There were so many great new things to discover and so many amazing photo opportunities. Bawl again!
By the way, we did not pay for the tour as we still had a 50€ tourist voucher from our electricity provider. We spent the remaining 10€  for an umbrella. You can never have enough of those in this rainy city!

Anyway, back in April on our first anniversary we hung a love lock. You can read more about it here and here. During the city tour we noticed that the bridge railing had been removed. I know i'm repeating myself, but whaaaat???
Our lock, what happend to our lock??? I did a quick research and it turned out that the railing needs to be restored and all the locks have been...wait for it....not been thrown away but been given to a museum!
A museum!! How fab is that??? You can read more about it in this article. It is written is in german, but it basically says that all the locks will be displayed in the museum's foyer during the month of September to give the owners the chance to collect their lock. I think this is such a nice gesture.

So, that's what we did in September. Collect our lock.

The museum had put together a really sweet program for all the lock-owners, with artists and a variety of tours. We decided to join the "fan" group and learned how handheld fans were used as a non-verbal kind of communication in the past centuries.

Here are a few impressions from the day we picked up our lock and a wonderful evening at the museum:

How adorable is this wedding dress??

So, the lock is back home with us now. Can you guess what we are going to do with it on our 2nd anniversary? :)

DIY: Love Birds Love Lock Tutorial

This is the tutorial for the "Love Birds Love Lock" i made for our first anniversary.

Total Time: ca 1 hour

Materials:

- Padlock
- Mod Podge
- Permanent Marker
- Scissors
- Paint brush
- Fabric 

A few tips beforehand:

- I used Sparkle Mod Podge because this is the only kind of Mod Podge i have *sad face*, but i think you can use any other formula as well.
-  a solid cotton-like fabric seems to work best. I tried satin at first, but it was too flimsy and did not stick well
- test your marker on a non-visible part of the fabric before you start. As you can see in photo below i wanted to use a turquoise marker, but it blurred and i had to use another one. 


Instructions: ( it's a bit difficult to explain, but i hope the description is halfway coherent nonetheless)


1. First cut a small piece of fabric, a bit larger than twice the size of the lock

2. Cut a tiny hole into the middle of the fabric and insert the shackle of the padlock
3. Now push down the shackle as far as possible to mark the position of the second hole, remove the fabric and make a small cut for that hole.

4. Pull the fabric over again and stretch it around the edges of the padlock. This will create creases to mark the area in which you can draw/write

 5. Draw your sketch, names, date or whatsoever, pull the shackle through fabric again, then cover the front and back of the lock with Mod Podge and flap down the fabric.

6. Cut two slits on both sides of the lock, apply Mod Podge and press down the fabric. Apply more Mod Podge and fold down the rest of the fabric. It's like wrapping a gift.

7. Cut off any excess fabric, apply a generous coat of Mod Podge all around the lock, then hang dry. I used a wooden skewer inserted into a drawer

8. Mod Podge is not waterproof, so once it has dried completely ( after ca. 24 hours) you need the cover the locket with a water-resistant sealant, e.g. Crystal Clear Spray

And that's it!

Our Easter Anniversary

MisterT had those easter treats hidden for me

We started the day with breakfast in bed.

Then we went for a walk and took a photo with a funny turquoise-white striped "1", our new anniversary tradition. I already decided that the next number will have polka dots.

I made a love birds "love lock" to hang onto our favorite bridge. Of course i did not make the actual padlock, but i embellished it with Sparkle Mod Podge and hand-painted fabric with our initials and wedding date. This probably won't last a lifetime, but perhaps we will turn it into another tradition to hang a new lock each year.

Back home we ate ( too much) chocolate cake and spent the rest of the evening on the couch with a few episodes of "Chuck" and the best homemade Chili ever.

The paper gift: A mini coupon booklet in addition to a card. I like giving coupons and had these cute templates pinned from the blog Carrots And Brokkoli.

And a few more impressions from a beautiful but windy and terribly chilly day:

One of my favorite houses. It's turquoise.