Last Anniversary Event

All I can say to this picture is...sometimes church potlucks can just wear a person out!

While growing up in Harrisonburg I always heard of and saw this fancy house on Main Street. It was "The Joshua Wilton House." It was known that it was a restaurant and a bed and breakfast. However, it was also known that it was very fancy and expensive...therefore I would probably never see the inside of that location. But as a child/young adult/adult it was nice to dream.

Beautiful, isn't it?

This past school year, my nephews were having a raffle to raise money for their school. So being the nice aunt that I am :) I bought a few tickets. I did not know what all of the prizes were, and I figured that I had little or no chance of winning. But as you can guess, my sister called me up and told me that I won one of the prizes. The prize was: a t-shirt, a gift certificate to a shop downtown, and a gift certificate to the Joshua Wilton House!

We decided to hold on to the gift certificate till our anniversary month and celebrate in style. So we arranged for childcare (mom, dad, Amy, and any of the family that was around at that time) dressed up, and headed out.

It was a nice summer day, so we took the offer to sit outside. We were set in the gazebo. It felt like a combination between being in the gazebo scene of The Sound Of Music and being a princess.

We started our dinner at 6:00 pm with our first course. Matt had Quail stuffed with sausage.

I had a cheese plate with pears and plums.

The meal continued with each of us getting the Joshua Wilton salad.

For the main course Matt had Duck with green beans (yes, he was feeling very fowl that day!)
I had Sea Scallops with Macaroni and Cheese.
As you can see below, the the lack of the meal on the plate indicates that it was very tasty.
Finally around 8:00 pm we finished up our meal with some Creme Brulee. Before bringing out our dessert the waiter had asked if we were celebrating anything. So that is how he knew to write Happy Anniversary at the top of our plate.

Wonderful meal, wonderful service, wonderful location, wonderful company.

Finally we paid. The waiter came and gave us the bill. It was more than our gift certificate but we had brought enough cash along to pay for the meal. So we put all of the necessary bills and the gift certificate in the payment book. The waiter came by and picked it up and said "I will be right back" I guess he was assuming that it was a credit card purchase that we would need to sign for. We quickly replied "Nope, it is all yours." He took a couple steps away from our table, then I think that it dawned on him what we said. He opened up the payment book, his mouth dropped, and he glanced back at us. I guess that he does not have too many people paying in cash at a location like this.

We called home and Grace was doing well so we decided to finish off the evening with a stroll downtown. To our surprise it was "Friday's on the Square." Each Friday they have a live band playing on the court square lawn during the summer. So we stayed and listened to some big band music, then went on our way.

It was such a nice date. Such a nice way to top off the celebrations of two years with a wonderful man.

Grace vs Broom

Funny things happen while I am away (in this case, taking a shower).
I am glad that Matt documents some of these occurrences on video.

Harvest

First....


Matt and I had big plans for our garden this year. But the cute little girl above has made some of those lofty goals a bit hard to obtain.

Last year I worked in the garden almost daily. I am lucky now to get out there once a week! Our garden is over grown with weeds, and it is not tended to, and to top it all off I believe that it has become the official breeding ground for Squash bugs/Stink bugs (last year I would check all of the leaves once a week and kill all of the known bugs and squash their eggs...this year they hatched :(So needless to say anything we get out of the garden this year is a blessing. Such as all of the tomatoes above, the 30 some onions, the wonderful lettuce, the many green beans, and the cucumbers that are about to be picked.

I am glad that these plants have decided to thrive on neglect.

Second Anniversary

Here is a picture of Grace...

In our house birthdays turn into birthweeks, and anniversary day turns into anniversary month. So this is only the first half of the celebration, we have more in the plans...but here it is so far.

On July 4th we made our fancy meal that we usually do for special occasions. This time we made Coq au Vin, mushroom barley risotto, and Matt's famous chocolate cake. The food was great but preparing the meal together was the most fun. Grace is wanting to become more and more "helpful" in the kitchen (and I know that it is only going to be more so as the years go by).
After dinner we went over to our neighbor's house to see fireworks from their back yard. Eating our chocolate cake while watching fireworks, while knowing that we would not have to fight traffic at all...was wonderful!

On July 10th we hired a babysitter. The first babysitter that Grace has had that was not a family member.

They both seemed to have a good time. While Gwen was watching Grace (sleep most of the time) Matt and I went out on the town. First we went to a restaurant called Metro and had a wonderful lunch.
Then we went to the downtown farmer's market just to look around. Finally we went to the Taubman Museum of Art in downtown Roanoke. It did not have as many pieces of art as we had expected in it, but there were a few pieces that just took our breath away. Like this one:
These are spools of thread that are hanging on wires...does not look like much
Until you look through a glass globe that is positioned in front of the work. Look in the globe, what do you see? A Soup Can! Who would have thought that spools of thread could be turned into this?

A trip across the walkway that goes from downtown to the Hotel Roanoke. Then a stop at Sonic for something cold and wet. We made our way back home to find a smiling and squealing Grace playing with Gwen.

Good anniversary adventures, I am looking forward to the next one...

Camping Part 2

As always...First here is a picture of Grace.


We were at my Mom and Dad's house recently, all of the boy cousins were in the wading pool or the slip and slide. Grace could not be left out, so we filled up Mom's bowl that she makes bread in with water and it quickly turned into Grace's own hot tub!

If you read my blog, you might have read the one titled Pre-camping Adventure where I talk about buying a tent. Well, here it is...and it is wonderful! We were so happy with it, which is amazing since we were unable to see the inside or the layout of it before we bought it.

We arrived to go camping on Friday at around 4:00 pm. We set up with no rush or trouble at all. We stayed until Sunday at about 1:00. It was a great weekend. We camped in a field with three other families.
We had most of the comforts of home with us...shade, clothes line, and yes even the walker!
It was a very relaxing and good weekend. However, at times it did get quite messy (especially at meal times). Somehow we always found a body of water to go swimming in or wading in right after a meal. Great way to wash off! Grace was amazed with the running water rushing by her as she sat in the creek.
Good first experience camping. Looking forward to many, many more.

The Math of Love

8 Months (how long Matt and I dated)
+
730 Days (how long Matt and I have been married)
+
30 Minutes (about how long the marriage ceremony took)

= 1 Eternity (how long we will be together)

Happy 2nd anniversary

New Friend and New Trick

Grace has a new friend. Can you tell which is which? They both have very blond hair, big blue eyes, cute button nose, two bottom teeth. I think that the dimple is the only thing that separates them, Grace does not have a dimple. I think that it is nice that Grace has a "mini-me"

And if the video is working, you can see the new trick that Grace does. It is cute and funny, till we try to feed her and she decides it is time to practice her new trick. Raspberries!