Oh My Gawd. I love Anniversaries. I love Birthdays. I love Christmas. I love, in fact, every holiday and celebration of every kind. Something about celebrations gives me a case of hand-flapping excitement every time.

Are you feeling me? I sure hope so, my fellow over-excitable human!

However there is something that I must admit. Sigh.

So… as the briefest of background stories, my husband and I met in 2004, and it was love at first “Jam Donut” shot. #EmbarrassingButBothTrueAndDelicious

7 years later we got married and we have been married for a whopping 7 years since that fateful day in 2011 *insert drama here*. Holy Shit I feel extra old now thinking about that… wrinkles are popping out all over the place right now…

And in the last few years of being married (probably since we have had kids actually and have become more tired than we ever imagined was humanly possible), we have kind of lost our mojo a wee bit when it comes to celebrating things. We have been boring, and grinchy and old. Sigh.

But, I decided that THAT type of thinking must change. From now on, even though we are tired AF, we are only allowed to have MASSIVE poop loads of fun. We will celebrate ALL things worth celebrating, and we will celebrate it ALL like its 1999. I mean, 2099.

So, we kicked off our new over-excitable life in December. We threw an EPIC party for our sweet babes first birthday. And when it came to Christmas, we revved up the kids (and each other) to psychotic levels, singing Christmas songs on repeat and screaming like fan-girls every time we saw Santa somewhere. There may or may not have been some tears too. But I cannot confirm or deny this #ItTotallyHappened

It has been the best being more over-excitable and less grumpy. We are really finding the joy in so much more. Thanks kids!

And then along came our anniversary.

About 6 months ago (well, who knows really, once you become a mum time loses all meaning) I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, like you do. And an ad popped up. For a romantic date. Well, for a mystery picnic actually, but same same. Much romance either way. It had sounded like so much fun, that I saved the link in my notes thinking that I would LOVE to do something like that. And when the anniversary rolled around I booked it without a second thought.

And it was the best anniversary ever!

Here are the deets of what we did. If you are planning on doing it, I will try not to ruin the surprise for you, however there may be some accidental spoilers in there, so read at your own peril…

What: Mystery Picnic Date. aka. The Best Anniversary Ever!
Who: AmazingCo 
Where: Yarra Valley – 1 hour North-East of Melbourne

Firstly, let me start off by saying that AmazingCo have so many different experiences available, so before you jump in, check out their website and see what activity (and location) is best for you! And also, this is NOT a sponsored post, we just had such a ball that I knew I must share it <3

We chose the Mystery Picnic Date, we chose to drive ourselves (there are options for public transport as well), and we chose the Yarra Valley because we love wine. Jokes. It was actually because it would be the closest location to pick up our kids from the in-laws once we were done, without making them stay overnight. Though that was definitely considered lol.

We weren’t given the address of where to pick up our picnic basket, until the day prior to our booking which was exciting and added to the mystery. We picked it up at 10am in Abbotsford, though in hindsight we should have picked it up at 9am on the dot, as to have that one extra hour to explore would have been bliss! They do say that it takes 5-6 hours to complete the experience. We took 6 as we really tried to sit and enjoy each stop that we arrived at where needed. However there was one location recommended to see that we didn’t get the chance to see, hence why that extra hour would have been fantastic… Next time hey?

The picnic basket contained a platter which was already half filled with goodies, and an ice bar to keep it all cool for as long as possible. Along with the basket, we were also given 5 clues which we would use throughout the day to get to our final destination when we would eat the heck out of that picnic! Yum.

We opened up the first one and we were on our way.

We arrived at the most beautiful park (I wont tell you which one though) with the most incredible views. Rain was threatening, but because it was quite a humid day we wandered our way through the walking tracks around the park until at least it DID start to rain lightly. Even then we didn’t rush because wandering hand in hand through the warm rain was actually kinda beautiful. #LovedIt

The second clue took us to a sweet little bakery to pick up a lovely loaf of fresh bread to add to our picnic basket. It smelled incredible… And we were already a bit hungry at this point so we may have grabbed ourselves a couple of fresh pies to enjoy while we figured out where to go next. They were piping hot. See ya later taste buds.

The third clue took us to a gorgeous boutique winery, where we picked up some smoked meat for our picnic basket, and enjoyed a delicious wine tasting whilst learning about the process of harvesting grapes for wine, and smoking the meats. It was lovely. I may have gotten a bit happy from the wine tasting.

The fourth clue took us to a Providore on a strawberry farm where we were to select two of the most delicious cheeses. We didn’t hang around here too long though we would have loved to have picked some strawberries, because we were getting hungry again #StoryOfMyLife, so we hopped back in the car with a now full picnic basket, and opened up our fifth clue which would take us to our final destination.

The final destination was a gorgeous winery at the top of a hill, overlooking a valley filled with grapes for wine. We sat down on the loveliest of “swings” (I am not even kidding), were provided with a glass of wine each, and unpacked our picnic. We ate and drank until we burst. Metaphorically of course.

We were so happy, and relaxed, and filled with so much excitement that a) we would now be able to eat hehehe and b) we had managed to complete the day without getting lost or yelling at each other. But it wasn’t that kind of experience. Everything was designed to be solved by “Google” if you couldn’t figure it out, and you could also text the organisers – AmazingCo – if you needed. But we were good.

So we sat back, watched the world (and the clouds) roll on by, and ate our picnic full of love for life. We sat there for a good 2 hours I think, barely talking but grinning like idiots at the beautiful day we’d just had. Thinking about the life we had created, and the two beautiful children we had brought into this world.

It was the best anniversary ever. And I can’t wait to do it all again this year. #HolyCrapIts2019

Have you been on an experience like this? Did you love it? Otherwise what was your favourite date that you have been on with your partner? Leave a comment below so I can totally rip off your ideas for next time. I mean, because I love to hear all about zee romance. <3