"State Trips"

This post is to explain what I mean when I say "State Trip" next to one of the places we visited; ie. Hawaii and New York so far. Eric and I have traveled a lot, as you can probably tell from the pictures, and this is one of the reasons why. :)

Eric and I decided to alternate planning anniversaries. I'm not really sure how this happened, but we don't really surprise the other with what we're doing, per say, but we just take turns deciding what we want to do. (Well I think Eric intended on surprising me, but I usually am the one to find good deals for traveling so he ended up just telling me what his choice was and I booked everything haha eh it works for us!) So for anniversary numero uno, Eric chose a romantic getaway to Sedona and a visit to the Grand Canyon. It was lovely and a little chilly, but what can you expect since we got married late November? For our second anniversary I chose the Bahamas.. I'm a lover of warmth, what can I say? We're not really sure where we're going this year yet for anniversary number 3 (THREE YEARS?! WOOHOO! I really can't believe it.)  Anyways.. this is all off topic from why I really was doing this post... So here is the story behind the State Trips:

Nearing our first anniversary, Eric was trying to think of what he wanted to do as a tradition each year for our anniversary. Some people follow those lists where its like a clock for 1st year of marriage, china for second, leather for the 7th, silver for the 25th etc, etc. (totally made those up, but I hope you get my point!) My dad gets my mom a rose for each year of their marriage.. Which he said he wish he would have thought of something else because roses are expensive when you're married for a long time! Ha!

Eric had thought of the single rose for each year as well, but wanted to think of something else when I told him that is what my dad does for my mom. So being the hopeless romantic that he is, he racked his brain and came up with the sweetest, genius, wonderfully PERFECT idea!

He decided to give me a STATE QUARTER (you know, the new ones with the states on the back?) on each anniversary and we would travel to that state within the next year, before our next anniversary. How thoughtful, no?! He also said he wanted me to scrapbook a couple pictures of each trip on 1 page and include the quarter so by the time we have our 51st anniversary, we will have a scrapbook with 50 pages, one from each anniversary, and we would have traveled to every state, together. (Maybe we'll even go for 51 quarters and do Puerto Rico too, even though it isn't a state! I'm totally okay with that) I know- you're SUPER impressed and a little jealous of the incredible man I married, I would be too! Although I haven't started the scrapbook yet, I'm planning on doing it soon and I'm so excited! So while we were in Sedona, celebrating the fact we made it through 1 year of marriage, Eric gave me the first quarter- Hawaii. Yes! While we were celebrating year 2 in the Bahamas, he gave me quarter 2- New York. Yes, again! I guess you could say we're trying to do the more expensive trips first before we have 10 children running around and can only make it over to like New Mexico, ha.

So here's the list so far:

Anniversary #1: Hawaii Quarter

Anniversary #2: New York Quarter

Anniversary #3: (?? Any guesses?)


So there you have it, the beginning of our 50 year adventure. :)