How We Celebrated Our First Anniversary

Thank you for all of the sweet wishes for our first anniversary! I really do love reading comments from all of you – it’s always so fun!

So I want to do a re-cap of our celebratory weekend with you since we did so many fun things.

Everything started out on Friday night with a fun dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in the city. We ordered many small plates to share and the food was absolutely incredible. Hummus, Chankleesh, Chicken and Beef Kabobs, the most amazing “fries” you have ever had in your life, and two AMAZING desserts – a “candy bar” chocolate dessert and pistachio cookies with marshmallow whip. Holy YUM! BUT the standout of this dish, one you would never guess, GREEN BEANS! They were actually pan seared and then tossed in a date molasses and sprinkled with spices and toasted sesame seeds. Even M. agreed that they were the standout of the meal. Seriously, if I could eat green beans like that every day…I would have them with every meal for sure! I love trying new and different places in the city and we will definitely be going back for more at Illi.

After our meal on Friday evening we headed home and watched a little TV before I crashed on the couch. This is typically how my Friday evenings go…once I lay down on our couch my eyelids suddenly become far too heavy to hold up. It always feels so good heading to sleep on Friday night since I know that I have the whole weekend ahead of me!

Saturday morning we slept in and had a little breakfast before taking Thatcher for a long walk. The weather was absolutely beautiful – warm, but with a cool breeze. While out on our walk M. stopped to have his hair cut and we ran a few errands. The main attraction for Saturday though was opening our anniversary gifts to one another and attending the play, War Horse (which I actually saw while in London) at Lincoln Center.

We got dressed up for our evening out (I wore the red dress that I wore for my Breakfast with the Bride the day before my wedding day!) and then we opened presents! M. surprised me with an adorable pink and white gingham box filled with funny little “paper” goods and then, at the bottom of the stack was a print out of airline reservations for us to visit my family in Wisconsin! My family is having a little get together in Wisconsin in July and I really wanted to go, but with our work schedules I didn’t think we’d be able to. Luckily though, M. arranged everything with his office to take that day off and we’ll be joining our family for a fun summer celebration! I am so excited!

As for my gift to M. I tried to lead him in the “wrong” direction by hinting on my blog that I needed to go “pick up” his present while I was in North Carolina, but really all along I was hiding a little something from him! It’s certainly a trend lately, but I ended up hiring one of the gals who shot my wedding to do a classy portrait session for M.! It was so fun doing the shoot - I rented a room in the hotel where we stayed on our wedding night and we ended up spending more than 4 hours taking photos! The photos turned out JUST the way that I wanted them to, incredibly tasteful and timeless. Marissa did an AMAZING job. Sorry, but no sharing on the blog! :)

After the gift giving we made our way towards Lincoln Center. We had dinner near the theater at around 5:30 and then walked around the area until the show started at 8:00pm. M. was so sweet to buy us tickets to the show since I have been telling him for months how good it is and how I wanted to see it with him! We had wonderful seats and the theater was PACKED - a sold out performance I am sure. We planned on stopping for a special dessert after the show, but once it ended we were both kind of tired and ready to just hang out at home. It was a great and memorable way to celebrate our first anniversary!

Of course, we weren’t finished just yet! I was going to celebrate ALL weekend long. I decided that we should save our top tier of wedding cake for Sunday evening (a post for tomorrow). All day Sunday we shopped and walked around the city. The weather was beautiful once again and made for the perfect leisurely city day. Right at three o'clock we stopped on our walk home and took two pictures since exactly one year before we would have just been officially "married". We stopped by the grocery store to pick food up for the week and then spent the afternoon catching up on our DVR and going on yet another walk with our pup.

Overall it was the perfect weekend of celebrating. I can’t believe that our first anniversary has already come and gone, but I am looking forward to many more wonderful anniversaries with my fabulous husband!

Tomorrow I’ll give you the “funny” wedding cake story! :) Happy Tuesday!