This Friday will mark exactly one year until our wedding date in 2013! It's crazy because it seems so far away, but I'm sure it will fly by. I actually just realized Monday night that it would be our 'negative one year anniversary' on Friday. At the same time I also realized we completely forgot about our 'old' anniversary a couple weeks ago, and it is so not like us to forget. I guess it means, as they say, out with the old and in with the new (anniversary dates, that is)! So for our new day (the negative one year), I wanted to do something special. We'd like to keep it pretty low-key and casual. Here are some of our ideas. Picnic dinner in Alamo Square up the block from our apartment. The only drawback is that it's usually cold and windy up there, so we would need to bundle up (and bring the red wine), which I guess is not such a bad thing!

Movie night at home with a bottle of bubbly, popcorn and our cat? Doesn't get much better than that in my book. Also, a great excuse to watch a chick flick, wedding movie. Any recommendations? I found this list of winners. I've been wanting to watch The Five Year Engagement, so that could be a good one.

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Cook dinner together at home. We do this most nights, so we'd have to make it an extra special menu and atmosphere (candles, dimmed lights and no TV).

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Head down to our favorite neighborhood dive bar for some beers and sausages from the place next door. Drinking wheat beer reminds me of our trip to Munich where I discovered my love for it. It's also a great place to people-watch!

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What's your vote for us?! Did you and your fiance do something special for your negative one year anniversary? If so, what did you do?

I just took a look through pictures of the last 5+ years of my life which makes this whole post that much more real to me. So many things you forget about until you see photos of it. (Thank you....facebook) 4 years ago I got the chance to fall in love with my now fiance. 4 years ago today everything came to a meeting ground, and we finally had the chance to be together.

When we met:

Surprising it started in the summer of 2001, I was about 13 at the time. We had gone to school together prior to this, but never really knew each other. My best friend was his sister, and his best friend was my cousin. I was home from school on summer break (I went to boarding school....not cause I was "bad" BTW) and since he happened to live at my best friend's house, well it made everything rather convenient. It's hard to explain it all, but it was that young love kind of thing. Definitely the best summer of my life.

Obviously the last 9 years hold a million stories, ups, downs, etc.etc. And now we are here together after that much time has passed, planning a wedding and a life together.

Above are pictures from a few years ago. Oh and that's baby Apple :)

That's our godson Aiden :)

And of course, the ring. Top two were taken the night of the engagement. I couldn't stop shaking, and therefore the picture kept coming out blurry. Read my proposal story.

(EWWW - my hands look disgusting....)

In the past four years we have built quite a little life together. Bought a condo and moved into it on our 6 month anniversary, expanded the family with our two little kitties Apple and Bisco, got engaged, and moved into our newest even more amazing house! I'm sure the next 4 and 40 years will lead to many more amazing things, the most exciting of which is Reaghan, Brooklyn, Jonah, Ryleigh Aiden, etc. (I really love coming up with baby names haha)

Happy Anniversary HB :) Loovessss you!