Before getting married, I had never before realized the importance of taking vacations. Nathan and I love to travel, but in the past few years we've focused more on doing things with our free time to help (like heading to Africa twice last year!) than taking a cruise or laying out on the beach. We love travel but we also love doing things that matter, so last year when we sat in the middle of a snowstorm on the Dulles runway for our fifth anniversary as we headed to Africa together, it felt right.
This year we didn't have such a grand opportunity, but with year number 6 (oh how the time flies!) coming up we decided at the last minute to take an impromptu trip to see our favorite places in Hampton Roads and Richmond. After an engagement session Friday (eek, can't wait to share!) we headed up to Williamsburg and had a very cozy, lazy night in while we talked and recovered from the week.
The next morning, we got up and headed to our favorite place {besides Portland, of course) - Carytown! We got to meet up with one of my brides from last year at Chop Suey Books where I picked up and put down too many used books to count. I have a stack of reading I'm currently working through, but I ended up grabbing two new reads. After a lunch at the New York Deli (yes, I still Whole30'd all day!) and some more exploring, we said goodbye and headed to Maymont. It was a cold and gloomy day but the park was still beautiful and we walked around until we couldn't feel our fingers.
Nathan's main desire when vacationing is to eat good food - and oh did we! We took a quick trip to downtown Richmond (where I fell in love all over again) and then happened upon a little restaurant called Stella's. And OHMYGOSH was that food amazing! I was stuffed afterwards but I could've kept going for salmon that good. We waddled back to our hotel that night, put on comfy pants, and watched the NFL playoffs for the rest of the night.
The next day we had planned to take a long bike ride, but it was COLD and neither of us had prepared for the weather. Instead I got to show Nathan William and Mary's campus since he had never been, we ate lunch at an amazingly accommodating and delicious little place called Food for Thought (seriously - they were awesome!), and we finished out the weekend with a trip to the Williamsburg Outlets.
All in all, this wasn't the craziest adventure we've been on. It wasn't a whirlwind trip, and it had nothing to do with photography. And it was so good. In the midst of the holidays, it's too easy to forget to focus on the family closest to you - and for us that's each other. Being in a familiar city with new adventures reminded me how, even though we often seem so opposite, we truly do enjoy the same things. Most of all, we just enjoy being together. And a few days before our 6th anniversary, as I realize more and more the joys and struggles of marriage, that is something worse celebrating any weekend.
