3rd Anniversary

Year 3 has come and gone and now we're headed into round 4.  On January 9th, Luis and I celebrated our 3rd Anniversary!  We celebrated by getting a babysitter and going out to eat.  This may sound mean, but I was incredibly excited to eat a meal, at a restaurant, alone with Luis.  (I think you moms can relate.)

Before the restaurant, our celebrations began early when Luis got out at noon and surprised me with some beautiful flowers (which, by the way, are still looking mostly alive).  

Since Luis was in charge of planning our anniversary this year, he picked out a new restaurant called Cannataros Italian Restaurant.  It was a quaint little place, not busy at all.  The workers certainly don't "hustle and bustle" because it seemed like it took awhile for each new phase of our meal.  We walked in and waited a few minutes before anyone came out to seat us.  Then, it took another 10 minutes before anyone came to take our order.  Thank goodness we ordered an appetizer, because our main entree didn't arrive until an HOUR later.  Probably to your shock and amazement, we weren't annoyed in the least.  It was a RELIEF to not be rushed.  That way, we could just take our time while we talked and enjoyed our night out.

I love my Luis.  I love that he tells me I'm beautiful every day.  I love that he laughs at my really lame jokes.  I love that he involves me in decisions.  I love that he plays with our daughter.  I love that he holds the priesthood and loves the Lord.  I love that he is so calm and patient (he gets that from me, I think).  I could go on and on, but I'm just so grateful that he's mine forever.

Anniversary #2

You know that tradition where the top of a wedding cake is saved, frozen, and then consumed a year later?  Yeah, we forgot step three.  So, we prolonged the whole tradition by an extra year and delved into our cake for our second anniversary.  Wedding cake on night of wedding = yummy.  Wedding cake after two years = nasty.  I'm not sure who thought up this tradition, but I would like to suggest a slight adjustment.  How about eating the cake while it's yummy?  Then, when anniversary time rolls around, order a piece of the same kind of cake.  The taste is sure to beat a year's worth of freezer burn.

The above-mentioned cake sampling took place in Utah a week or two before our actual anniversary.  On our anniversary weekend, we began our celebrations by painting a baby dresser.  (Lucky Luis!)  Then, we went to see Sherlock Holmes 2.

Our dinner plans led us to The Cheesecake Factory.  It was yummy, but A LOT of food.  I was full at this point...

Luis and I tend to judge our service by how many times the waitress brings us bread.  Service was good that night!  We were even sent home with a container full of their yummy brown bread.

Of course, no anniversary is complete without a trip to the local Mexican market.

All of this celebrating took place the weekend before our anniversary date of January 9th.  What did we do on our actual anniversary?  We rented Kung Fu Panda 2 and ate left-overs.

Happy 2 year Lu!

Anniversary Numero Uno

Anniversaries come around so fast.  I remember the time we celebrated the first anniversary of my birth.  I was like, "What?"  and mom was like, "My little girls are growing up!"  and Amber was like, "Nose."  (She was an unfortunate child.)

Luis and I just celebrated our first anniversary, or as I like to say Anniversary Numero Uno.  We decided to drive down to San Diego for the weekend.  Unfortunately, we didn't plan very well, which made for a short trip and hungry bellies.

We decided to drive down on the 8th, stay until the 9th, and come back home.  Since we could sleep in, which doesn't happen very often around here (at least for Luis), we did.  Then, we still had to pack up before we left.  We ended up not leaving until around 2 in the afternoon.  Our first stop was the San Diego Temple for a session.  Since they only occur every hour on the hour and we got there at 3:56, we had to wait around for another hour for our session, which was fine.

The session ended around 7.  As I waited for Luis in the lobby, I was surprised to find him coming INSIDE from OUTSIDE to meet up with me.  Apparantly, someone got lost and went out the wrong door.  Immediately, several security guards intercepted him and kindly informed him he had exited a non-exiting door (he he he).  I find that rather funny, but I digress.  Moving on. 

We then headed for our hotel.  Never again will we stay at the Sheraton.  Can anyone say, "Rip off!"  When we were checking in, the clerk asked us if we would like the continental breakfast in the morning, which is held on the very exclusive 13th floor.  If so, it would be $20.  Don't even the crumbiest hotels at least have free stale bagels and juice?  We declined.  Then, he asked us if we would like valet parking or if we would like to park ourselves.  Thankfully we're not so lazy we need someone to drive our car 50 ft. from the door to spare us the exhaustion.  Again, we declined and he said, "That will be $22.00 to self-park."  So basically we had to pay them for driving our car into a parking spot.  He then told us which elevators to use to access our rooms.  I had to bite my tounge before asking what the elevator-usage fee was going to cost us.

After checking in we decided to drive around, find some fast food, and eat.  We were quite famished.  Being right next to the airport, other hotels, and downtown, we thought it would be no problem to find some food.  Wrong!  We drove around for over an hour trying to find someplace to eat.  Apparantly we're idiots.  We ended up going back to the hotel and dining in one of their restaurants.  It ended up being yummy yummy yummy so we were happy.  Also, we were able to acquire this souveneir.  I'm betting it will last us at least 14 fries.

There was one good thing about driving around for an hour.  While we were in downtown San Diego, I noticed a couple riding in this cart/carriage thing.  Looking beyond the couple, expecting to see a horse and driver, I was shocked to see a person on a bike.  Can you imagine walking down the street, seeing that contraption, and saying, "Honey, let's ride this!

Back to the hotel.  As we waited for the elevators to take us upstairs, I found myself wondering, Boy, if the fire alarm goes off, how will we know?  I mean, we don't even know what it sounds like.  Thankfully, the hotel had it covered.

The next morning, knowing the breakfast options would be limited, we checked out early and drove to one of Lu's mission areas (Escondido) where he knew we could find an IHOP, which is pronounced "ee-ope" in Spanish.  Have you ever had a 15 min. wait at an IHOP?  Apparantly it was a "hoppin' place." Get it?  IHOP...Hoppin'?  That's a good one right?

That night we homemade tortillas and had tacos.  (Basically I hadn't gone grocery shopping since December 8th so we were pretty limited.)

For the record, this little senorita creates tortillas that resemble a circle much better than her Hispanic Counterpart.  I'm just sayin'.

Happy One Year Luis!