“Is that a grey hair in your beard?” I asked  my husband after waking up actually beside each other on the first morning of our trip. There’s usually a three-year-old between us every morning at home and a 23-month-old calling to us from his crib, so we are never actually that close together these days.

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it,” he said laughing. It was one of those moments when I realized that we don’t often get the chance to look at each other that closely anymore. You know, those Saturdays when it’s 11:30am and we are still in bed so let’s just stare at each other and chat kind of mornings. Well, those are kind of a thing of the past now that we have two little ones, so making time for us has become really important!

Over the past six years, planning a little getaway for our anniversary has kind of become a tradition. We pick a spot, not too far from home, and plan a little mini vacation; basically time for us to spend time together and most recently, time for us to catch-up. Some of our favourite spots include; Old Quebec, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Prince Edward County.

I don’t think we officially decided that this was going to be a tradition until recently. We have never been big planners; navigating a pre-planned road map of our lives, but we have agreed on our love of travel (even if it’s not far) and quality over quantity. Every year we talk about what we’d like to do or give each other for our anniversary and often find that we don’t really “need” anything tangible; what we do need is time together.

As we try to navigate this crazy parenting thing and our young family continues to grow, we’ve realized that time together, just us one-on-one, has become something we often do need to plan, map out and make happen. Yes, there are those fluke moments when we are together (alone) and the kids are asleep or with the grandparents, but the majority of the time these moments need to be planned out. So whether it’s, dessert and chatting together on the back patio or porch swing after the kids go to bed or a little walk to the local ice cream shop while the grandparents are over, most of the time these things have to be at least thought over if not planned.

Today is officially our six year wedding anniversary and while we don’t have plans for today specifically, I am so happy that we did plan to spend that quality time with each other last weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake;  two nights of actual conversations, some time to sleep in, relax and reminded us of what it means to be us again.

What are some of the things you like doing to spend quality time with your partner or celebrate an anniversary? Would love some ideas for next year!

xo 

Vanessa