our first date-iversary!

on may 21, 2011, taylor and I went on our first date.

and although it was an "accidental date" (read here for more details), it suddenly became our first date.

we seriously had SO much fun.

the BEST first date I've ever had (and last first date...).

tay and I love celebrating the "small things," and so every year, we do something to celebrate our first date.

I think May 21, 2011 is my second favorite day (behind the day when I finally became MRS TAYLOR GILBERT!).

I love looking back and thinking about how little 20-year-old kelli had NO IDEA what this date would lead to.

It was the FIRST DATE with my forever!

And that makes me soooo happy.

Because it was the start of this beautiful journey we share today!

ANYways, may 21 was on thursday this last week.

and I told taylor I wanted to plan something special.

I had been preparing all week, and had lots of special plans.

the plan was supposed to start with me cooking the meal that I cooked for him on our first date.

BUT, I got my first-ever cavity that same day (more to come on that), and when I got home, I fell asleep and woke up 2 hours later in a pile of drool (thanks numb face).

and when I looked at the clock, I realized I only had 20 mins before I had to leave for a church meeting.

soooo no time to make the dinner.

then, after the meeting, I came home to hear some bad news.

taylor and I had a pretty big bomb dropped on us that night.

one that was really hard for both of us to swallow.

...and had me in tears for the majority of the night.

our shared frustration and my tears (LOTS of them), had us both a little on edge.

and the LAST thing I wanted to do was to "celebrate"

and so, we both crawled into bed early that night.

with me still crying...HA

and taylor held me while I sobbed for another 20 solid minutes.

at this point, I was partly crying because of the "bomb" but also crying because that night was supposed to be SO SPECIAL.

I had prepared all week, and now we wouldn't even get to celebrate!

but as I laid in bed, with taylor cuddled up right next to me, I suddenly realized that this night was beautiful in its own way.

we didn't get to celebrate with smiles or laughs or dessert or fun plans.

but we were there for each other when things were HARD. 

I had a husband who held me until I stopped crying.

We were able to wither a storm together.

and I have May 21, 2011 to thank for it.

I was even MORE grateful for that first date than I think I would have been if we had been able to celebrate.

while we were laying in bed, taylor said, "I believe that today is only May 19th.  So we should celebrate May 21 on Saturday night." HA

so that's what we did.

we pretended saturday was May 21.

but it was kind of special in its own way, because May 23 (the real date of saturday) was the first day we held hands!

to celebrate, we started with recreating our first-date dinner.

then I kicked taylor out of the house for 20 mins to make this little fort.

and p.s. ALL of my pictures are blurry, because it was dark, and I was trying to hurry, and I didn't think to check them. HA

but I'm really proud of this circus-tent-fort.

(to make the fort taller, I attached string to the ceiling, and then safety pinned the string to the sheets! it was genius, and I'm still really proud of that idea)

I lit up the whole fort with string lights and LED candles.

which was really cool in the dark, but not so cool with a flash camera. HA

when taylor came in, I had a racquetball racquet hanging on the door with a sign that said,

"thanks for causing a "racquet" with me for the past 4 years. I'm so glad we get to play on the same team for life!"

(we payed racquetball on our first date)

 ^and of course, we had some cheesecake in our fort!...to symbolize the cheesiness of our lives. case in point...celebrating our first date-iversary. HA^

I also rented the movie we watched the first time we held hands...but we ended up watching burn notice instead. haha...neither of us could remember if the movie was even good (we were both too nervous to be paying attention to the movie four years ago), and we really wanted to watch something good.

so burn notice it was!

I cut open a racquetball and had little numbered messages inside for him to read.

don't know what taylor is doing here, but it kills me!
maybe crossing his fingers that it would be a fun night...? HA

and then...fort selfies.

 is this real life?

I am beyond grateful that God decided to make my May 21, 2011 one of the most special days of my life!

still don't know what I did to deserve taylorraygilbert!

until next year, May 21!

and happy first-date-iversary to my gilbert boy!

P.S. 3 days left of school until we can shout SUMMER from the rooftops! 

xoxo