TWO.

Two years.

For a little context, I began writing this just before our anniversary, but couldn't finish because the light from the screen kept waking Randy up, haha!

Warning: this post comes with a LOT of pictures of Randy & I!
Enter at your own risk...


I am writing this just 45 minutes before my second anniversary to my beloved husband and my heart is filled with joy to think back at how much things have changed. As I write this, I am sitting on a hotel bed, just as I was the night before our wedding. Except I was not sitting next to my sleeping husband (or my sleeping/awake fiancé, for those wondering!) either. No, I was in a room with my maid of honor, Katie, giggling about how I couldn't sleep, but needed to be awake in 4 hours. I couldn't wait to be Mrs. Byers - someone I still can't believe I have the honor of being.

Last month, Randy surprised me by telling me he had planned a trip for our anniversary. We have a lot of airline miles because of business trips and whatnot, so we just needed to fly somewhere we could use miles for that wouldn't keep us from work/school for too many days. We wanted somewhere we wouldn't have to rent a car, and we wanted somewhere there wouldn't be a risk of being snowed in since it was early January. Las Vegas it was! This was a huge surprise for me because Vegas is just about the last place in the world I expected Randy to pick, but I had never been before, so it sounded fun! We're only here Sunday through Tuesday afternoon, so it's a really short trip, but it has been awesome!

On Sunday, we got here and explored a little. We're staying at the Palazzo, which is connected to the Venetian, so there's a lot to do here. After we got settled into our suite (THANKS, HUBS!!!), which is SWEET (classic pun), we went and had lunch/dinner at Delmonico Steakhouse, which is Emeril Lagassi's restaurant. It is ridiculously expensive, which we expected from Vegas and that particular restaurant, but it was so delicious I'm pretty sure I almost cried.
Maybe a little dramatic, but I'm not even kidding.
























Then, we went to see JERSEY BOYS!
THANKS AGAIN, HUBS!!!

Y'all, I have the best husband ever.
Just so you know.

Okay, so back to the story.
The show was incredible. I've always heard it was, but I really loved it. It's probably tied with Wicked for my favorite musical now. It's that good. We had really awesome seats, too. Best. Husband. Ever.

Then we walked around and it was COLD outside. By cold, I mean it was still 30-60 degrees warmer than the rest of the country, but it was cold to me in my dress! It was probably 40-45 degrees out. Yes, I know...pity us. I'm not sure how true this is, but I heard today that the windchill where we were in Kentucky this past week was colder than the north pole. I'm not sure how that works, but I know when I checked their weather at 2pm their time it was -16 wind chill. Holy moly. At that exact time, it was 52 degrees here...heehee.

Next, we watched the fountains at The Bellagio (ya know, like Ocean's 11...that Bellagio) and they were incredible. Nothing will ever do the fountains justice until you see them in person. Wow. They are so incredible! As they were going off I kept imagining the Rockettes or something, dancing with each beat of the song - kicking and twirling about as the song goes on.

Monday, we decided to take the day easy. We originally had reservations for a fancy pantsy restaurant at the Bellagio called Olives for our anniversary dinner at 8 that night, but our only reason for eating there was because their patio is THE best place in Vegas to watch the fountains at dinner. Well, with the weather being a bit chilly and even with reservations there's no guarantee you'll be on the patio, we decided it just wasn't worth it to us considering there were about 10 extremely expensive things on the menu that we weren't entirely sure sounded that great. For that much money, I'd really prefer to not have to google what the ingredients are on your menu. If that means I'm just not cut out for high society, then so be it.

So for our anniversary dinner, we decided to go Buddy V's Ristorante in the Venetian. Biggest perk: we didn't even have to leave the building to get there! Buddy V is the guy from Cake Boss on TLC. At this point we decided our anniversary apparently had a "Jersey" theme. We checked to see if Emeril had any Jersey roots and he doesn't, but he is from Massachusetts...so that's close-ish? Note: if you are from Massachusetts and/or New Jersey and that offends you, I'm sorry! ...Let's all take a second to laugh at the ridiculousness of that last paragraph...

the holy cannolis

Anyway, so Buddy V's was actually really delicious! And half the cost of just about everywhere else! AND half as crowded. AND we got these cannolis (one of the things Buddy is known for) that were freaking delicious. The restaurant had this fantastic family feel to it with family photos on the wall and it was decorated with kitchen utensils in a modern-art-meets-rustic-hipster sort of way. It was so awesome. The dessert menu even came in the form of a family photo album with the dessert items each printed on paper that looked like lined index cards in font that looked like old recipe card font. The unique touches of this
place were so wonderful and refreshing. It was nice to see a nice restaurant that was trying to bring a family restaurant vibe into the mix of impersonal modern glam.

Does your light feature have whisks hanging from it? I want mine to now!!

sorry it's blurry...the waiter who took it "didn't know how to use an iphone..."

Tomorrow (2 days ago) we're sleeping in a bit, then taking the day to roam around and explore after checkout until we have to be at the airport. It should be another relaxing day. We have definitely needed some relaxation!!!

The only bad news in all of this is that poor Randy is sick and I am catching it :(
Fortunately, he got some medicine at a clinic today. Hopefully he'll be good as new soon!

This next part was written on the 8th & 9th.
Now that we're home, I can say it was truly the vacation we needed. It could have been longer, but we couldn't have afforded any longer! Hah! I talked a lot about how the trip was going to be our break from reality, and that's really what it was. For a little more than 2 days, I wasn't in school, we didn't have jobs, we didn't have anything to worry about other than Randy's sniffles and being so sleepy we just wanted to drop, we hadn't just been to the funeral of my beloved grandmother, and I didn't have a ton of homework piling up on me. We were just in love and having fun. Not that we aren't in love all the time, but at home we're in love with all the other chaos. It was nice to just be us. It wouldn't be fun to live like that all the time, but for just 3 days it was really nice.

I love this man SO much. I'm thankful for our two years of marriage and can't wait for a million
more! Or, ya know, however many we get to have ;)

I'll repost here what I wrote for him on instagram/facebook on our anniversary:

"Happy second anniversary to my favorite person in the whole world. Thank you for being my best friend, my prayer warrior, my snuggle buddy, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, someone who will warm up my cold hands and feet (heehee!), a great listener (especially for my sleep-talking!), and in general for taking care of my every need often before I even know I need it. You are the best husband I could have ever asked for and definitely the one I needed. The Lord blessed me greatly when He gave me you. I love you so much! Here's to many more!"

I love you, Randy Byers. Forever & A Day.