Gail & Dale: Live a little, love a lot

This time last year I was frantically trying to put together the last little details of our wedding. I met and re-met with the tent people, the wedding planner, the caterer, and the musicians. This week last year was spent making sure that everything would be perfect for our big day. As it turned out, like many things in life, not everything happened according to plan. My fears were held in the catering and the music, and my trust was held in the decorator/wedding planner. When it came down to the day, the one I trusted flopped, and the two I was skeptical about went above and beyond my expectations. Funny, huh?

The wedding planner/decorator was suffering the loss of a relative as well as battling the flu and she was totally unavailable on our wedding day. My amazing family, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the whole bunch gave up the day on the lake to pull together and decorate. My dad, Brook's dad, and my brothers ran errands endlessly, Pastor Ben and his wife Lisa pulled together to execute the timing and coordinating of things. My mom, Brook's mom, and Brook worked together to stay calm and keep me calm (even when I snapped!). The ones I love pulling together to make our wedding day is what truly made it special. I married my best friend and I had all my loved ones there making sure it happened. We are truly blessed to have such amazing friends and family in our lives!

Fast forward to this year and we are in Florida, with a couple of friends, no family here at the moment, and nothing bigger to plan than our next day off together. That being said we have grown so much as a couple even in the past year. We went from relying on everyone on our big day, to living about 2 miles from Brook's parents, to living with my parents, to living 45 minutes from my parents, and now we are on our own in Florida, learning to rely on only each other, and falling more in love for it everyday.

This past Sunday we had the whole day off together (mostly because my scheduler goofed and thought our anniversary was this past Sunday), and all throughout Saturday night and Sunday all I could think about was how happy I am to be with this man. Sunday morning at 3 a.m. when we were at a totally disgusting Waffle House eating soggy waffles next to bikers with horribly bad B.O., I felt a sense of perfection--as if there was no other place I would rather be and no other person I would rather be with. Sounds silly, but our time together really is precious!

Sunday we enjoyed our pool for a while, helped wrangle an alligator in the pond behind our house, watched Weeds (our new show addiction) on Netflix, went to dinner at SKOB, and then watched and danced to the drums on Siesta Key beach. Perfect day I must say!