anniversaries all around

.... not really. But it did turn out that my parents 35th anniversary would fall on the same weekend as Cody's grandparents 55th anniversary (followed by my brothers anniversary this week!) so it did feel like back to back celebration, especially after all of our birthday madness last week!

I had wanted to do something special for my parents for awhile now, since it was their 35th. So for months I'd made sure I had the weekend off work and started thinking of what to do.... have a swim/cookout at their house? too hard to plan at their own house. rent out a fancy restaurant for a nice dinner? not their style... so I decided to have a small dinner at a popular bbq place with live music on the weekends. I truly thought they had figured it out weeks ago when a few comments were made by my mom and I just about gave up and thought i'd just tell them the details, but I'm so glad I didn't! A few of their close friends and family had known for about a month to meet at this restaurant and be ready to surprise them. Cody and I came into town to "split up the trip" to his grandparents, so my parents were expecting us. During the day on Friday I had gotten a cake made (got it made to look like a replica of their wedding cake) and took it to the restaurant to be ready.  

meanwhile, my mom had gotten baseball style shirts made for her and my dad that said "married since 1979" and wanted some pictures taken. so while these are taken, people were getting to the restaurant. 

I'm so impressed how these pictures turned out! My mom just wanted one of their backs but my manly, lack-of-social-media dad kept throwing out pose options and i'm so glad he kept the photoshoot going ;)

so here we are walking up to the restaurant, i had them walk in front of me because I wanted a picture "of the restaurant" but actually to catch my parents find their friends. you can see my mom pointing at her friends and this picture as she says "ugh, I didn't get a phone call!"

this restaurant is a neat local place and when it was built you could buy a brick with your family's name on it. so here is ours! little did we know at the time we would have to add some "'s" to the cody and stephanie ;)

I had a few pictures in my purse from their wedding day so they got to look through them

 claire and I

the husband and I

my parents were SO surprised and raved all night about how happy they were that we did something special. I so with my brother and his stephanie could've made it!

the next morning we left early and headed southeast to east texas to meet cody's whole family for his grandparents anniversary/birthday party. We had so much fun hanging out with family (that I only briefly met at our wedding), playing catch phrase, and snuggling with our favorite nephew! We stayed there until Sunday afternoon and then we spent ALLLLL day yesterday driving across the state. Whew! what a weekend!