Our Day by Design

Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary. I know I say the same every year but this last year really has flown by. We had a busy 2012 watching Holden grow, and a couple of weddings and holidays. So far the start of 2013 has involved Holden turning 1, my return to work, selling our flat, and moving temporarily to my parents house. We have lots to look forward in our fourth year of marriage including our new house being completed in the summer and taking Holden to Florida at the end of November.   (Image by Craig & Eva Sanders ) We are having a quiet evening tonight then we will celebrate properly in a few weeks by enjoying a tasting menu meal at Martin Wishart , which was our Christmas present from my parents.

Its Grahams 31st Birthday today, on his first Father's Day; Happy Birthday G! This last year has gone so fast with all the preparations for the baby, Holden's arrival and the holidays we enjoyed. We have a busy summer ahead with my sister and her family visiting, two hen do's & the weddings, a week in Center Parcs then a trip to Australia in September which will be our first family holiday! Daddy with Holden when he was just 40 minutes old. This is also the first photo we have of Holden, unfortunately I missed it as I was still in recovery and hadn't met him yet. {His birth story is coming soon.} This is also our anniversary of 9 years together {and 2 years, 10 weeks & 5 days married!} Unlike last year when we celebrated in Marrakech and I was almost 8 weeks pregnant, this year Graham was at a stag do last night so once he got back we opened gifts with Grahams dad then headed out to lunch just the three of us before visiting my parents o...

Holden's third monthly photo, taken on the 1st of every month. Holden turned three months old three weeks ago. Again, although I did take the photos on the 1st, its taken me ages to get this post done! This month we celebrated our two year anniversary with a quiet dinner just the three of us, which Holden slept all the way through. Holden had his first set of vaccinations which were fine then we spent Easter having lunch with Grandad. Holden did get one egg, which mummy and daddy ate for him, as well as some new books from Granny and Grandad, clothes from Nanna and Grandad and we got him Spot's First Easter book. We attended our NCT reunion and it was lovely to meet all of the other babies and hear all the stories. The next day Holden also attended his first ever birthday party. Unfortunately I've spent most of the month struggling with terrible back pain so we stayed at my parents for most of the time as its easier for me to get out from their house. After seeing a phy...

Its Grahams 30th Birthday today; Happy Birthday G! This last year has gone so fast with all the weddings, holidays and events we had planned so we are now looking forward to what this next year will bring! (Image by Craig & Eva Sanders ) This is also our anniversary of 8 years together {and I year, 10 weeks & 5 days married!} As you know we are celebrating in Marrakech and hopefully at this moment we are enjoying the sun and lazing by the pool! We are going to celebrate with his family when we get back by having lunch on Sunday at Grahams parents house.

When I reached my 1st blog anniversary last year I wondered if I could keep it up for another year. Another year has passed and on my 2nd blog anniversary, I'm still here; so far so good and if you saw my drafts folder you would know there is still more to come! Next up is going to be recaps of the two weddings I was a bridesmaid at last year, some DIY which is long overdue and more of my travels. Thank you all again for following along, the lovely comments that you leave and for the wonderful friendships I have made { you   know who you are }; that was definitely not what I expected when I started writing about my wedding, but something that I now couldn't imagine being without. I cant tell you how excited I am that we are going to be able to attend a wedding very soon that would not have been possible without our little blogs. (All images by Craig & Eva Sanders )

I wrote a post ages ago about anniversaries and what each one is supposed to mean*. For each of our anniversaries I want to try and stick to it and get gifts for each other that would also mean something. For our 1st anniversary we decided to buy something together which incorporated paper and also one of our favourite things; seeing the world. We have been wanting to make a travel map for ages and ages so we decided this was the perfect time to make it happen! Having already visited four new countries since we got married {Sri Lanka, Maldives, Slovakia & Austria}, and our planned trip to Morocco which will make five, we hope to add to it in the coming years. Graham thinks we should aim to visit 100+ countries. I can probably count 29 at the moment so there is still a long way to go! We bought the FUTURE Map in blue, emerald, pink & yellow from The Future Mapping Company {which I first saw in Conversation Pieces Scotland on Sunday piece and knew we had to have it} as we...

On our actual anniversary we spent the day seeing some more of Vienna's sights . We headed back to the hotel around half six so we would have time to relax then get ready for our dinner reservation at 8.30pm. We went to the restaurant at the DO & CO Hotel, located in the main square, Stephanplatz. After being shown to our table we started with a glass of Rose Champagne to celebrate while looking at the menu. All of the food sounded delicious and there was a lot to choose from including international, Asian or Viennese cuisine. The kitchens were completely open so you could watch the chefs at work at the different stations and could see all of the fresh fish ready to be cooked. I settled on nigiri sushi {including tuna, salmon, prawn & a few other things} to start while Graham tried a dish which had goose liver served two ways with Thai mango. The sushi was as good as the kind I had while on our honeymoon even if I wasn't sure what a couple of the items were! ...

We wanted to make the most of our last full day in Vienna so made an effort to get up early {very unlike us}, have breakfast, then catch the first journey of the Ring Tram . We got on at the second stop so were the only tourists on board at 10am! This was fine until a man with a microphone, looking suspiciously like he was on the radio, came towards us and asked if we wouldn't mind singing happy birthday to the tram, I think it was the 1st birthday of the new tram or something like that! Of course we couldn't really say no so if anyone in Vienna was listening to the radio that morning, yes we were the silly tourists singing to the tram; I wish I had taken a photo! The tram tour took less than half an hour to go round the Ringstrasse which is the ring road around around the main centre of the city, and where you can see loads of the sights including the parliament building and the state opera house. While you could have done it yourself on two of the normal trams, we wanted...

After enjoying our breakfast and catching a tram to the train station, we bought return tickets to Vienna. Having just missed the 10.45am train we waited for the next one an hour later. After a short 75 minute journey {at only around 64km apart, Bratislava & Vienna are the closest capital cities in the world} we arrived in Vienna and made our way to our hotel on the underground system. We stayed at The Levante Parliament Hotel, which had been recommended by our friends who got engaged in Vienna in 2008 and booked through booking.com , for three nights. The hotel was very trendy and the room was gorgeous, although it was a lot smaller than the one in Bratislava. While we specifically chose a high star design hotel for our anniversary, the prices in Vienna in general were a lot higher than Bratislava. It only took 5 minutes to walk to the nearby Museums Quarter and around 15 minutes into the centre so it was in an ideal location, with underground and tram stops nearby if you want...