PBJennissen Blog: Surprise Anniversary Trip

Patrick & I celebrated our 5th Anniversary 10.18.08. What an incredible 5 years! To celebrate, we decided to go on vacation. Pat took the reins and said the trip was a complete surprise for me (he also did this for our honeymoon -- what a catch!). I only knew that we were flying somewhere. Then Maizlyn was born and I knew it was going to be hard to be away from her and I really just wanted to know a few details. Pat initially told me we would be gone for 5 days. I told him that would be perfect. Enough time to get away, relax & enjoy each other and then return to our sweetheart. Pat realized how much he was going to miss Maizie and his mother told him he had better let me in on part of the truth (thanks Jean!). He admitted that our vacation was not going to be 5 days but 10. He had planned on contacting my boss to get my vacation approved, was going to have my sister pack for me and then whisk me away to destination unknown. Pre-Maizie, that would have been so much fun! Post-Maizie...Thank God he let me in on this "little" bit of information, for I needed to mentally prepare myself to be away from her...my first extended period of time away. The anticipation of being away was worse than actually being gone and we had a wonderful time!
I had figured out we were going to visit our friends Jeremiah & Karla in Washington D.C. and Pat informed me there was a second destination. Once in D.C., I figured out that our friends were coming with us to destination still unknown to me but Pat denied it. We had a 3:30 AM wake-up call to catch a cab for our flight to 2nd destination. When J & Karla didn't join us in the cab, I told Pat they were obviously taking a later flight. He again denied it. Skip to us eating breakfast at the gate and J & Karla came up behind us saying, "Who's ready for a surprise anniversary trip?!" I knew it! But I still didn't know where we were going (which by-the-way, makes it very difficult to pack). We had a connecting flight in Atlanta and after hearing which gate we had to be at next, I stood in front of the monitors and figured it out...we were going to Nassau, Bahamas!! There are so many other details I'm leaving out, but this story is getting too long. It was a great trip and we had so much fun. Thanks again for being part of the surprise, Jeremiah & Karla. We truly had a great time vacationing with you two again!!

While in D.C., we biked from Jeremiah & Karla's to Mount Vernon and back (about 23 miles total). It was a lot of fun -- beautiful scenery, exercise and a history lesson all in 1 day! Above, me and Jeremiah are roasting apples. We then dipped them in honey. It was really good!

Pictured in front of Mount Vernon (George Washington's house) is Jeremiah, Patrick & Mat, another college friend who works in D.C. We also toured Arlington National Cemetery, two of the Smithsonian Museums & the Washington Monument. We walked by the White House and ate at some really great restaurants too.