Anniversary

Mr. Bella went all out for our anniversary! We had such a wonderful night. It started when I arrived home yesterday afternoon and this was waiting for me on the table:

Aren't they beautiful? There are more than two dozen in there! They are so gorgeous and arranged all pretty in a gorgeous crystal vase. Isn't he fantastic?

And because I've always thought these pictures were beautiful I put my rings in there. But obviously my camera is not fancy enough to make it look pretty.

We went to dinner at a swanky, local owned bistro, Rutabega. It's an owner/chef place where the menu changes seasonally. We dined there several times when the same chef owned a restaurant named for him and it was fantastic. He changed the menu nearly nightly then. One of the fabulous things about the bistro is that he uses local and organic grown food and local free range meat whenever possible. He buys from farms rather than food services otherwise.

I want a job just so I can eat there twice per month rather than just special occassions.

Rutabega is a bring your own place so for a $5 cork fee we enjoyed a big boy bottle of wine. By we I mean I had a few and offered to drive home while Mr. Bella kept enjoying. Another great thing about this place is that you don't feel rushed as you do in more commercial places. We enjoyed several glasses of wine long after we'd finished dining.

On to the food:

We started with crispy home made potato chips and a wild muchroom fondue. Mmmm!

While we waited for our food the chef sent a little treat: cheddar biscuits with a strawberry rhubarb jam and jicama slaw.

Mmmm! Mmmm!

I had a roast leg of lamb with blue cheese potato hash and spring pesto. It was superb! One of my favorite dishes from Chef has always been the lamb and I don't really eat lamb all that often and it's a real treat!

Mr. Bella had an 18oz (!!!) bone in ribeye with a three cheese potato bed and asparagus.....which I helped him eat. I loooooooooooove asparagus. It too was superb.

My meager description don't do justice for how scrumptious the food was.

We were too full for dessert and thought we may go by one of our favorite cheesecake places and get an entire cheesecake to share with BB. However we were full and after drinking more wine it was late so we've decided we'll grab that and continue the celebration this weekend.

Mr. Bella also wrote me a very sweet note on his personalized stationary. Apparently he didn't plan ahead enough for a card. We actually usually make each others cards. I'd much rather have his personal and meaningful note than a card. I kinda cheated, I bought a card AND made a card.

Our evening was so nice. It was so laid back and relaxing and we were able to really enjoy each others company and talk. We talked about how we felt at our wedding, how far we've came, where we're going, and what kind of exciting things our future holds. My love language is quality time and he was definately speaking to me.

As for gifts we decided that his goodies from our recent PB trip (the charging station and watch box) would be his leather gifts and mine is a new bible. We've also decided to have an antique chair covered in leather. It may be a while to pick and choose all the particulars and have that done. I briefly considered that we may do it ourselves, but aye aye aye....I'm not sure.

Lastly...I think we've decided to go for sperry's too. I tried a pair and they felt like pure buttah! So by lumping them into the anniversary gift category....it somehow makes them ok.

But really, the real gift was the treat of spending the evening with Mr. Bella. And every evening for the rest of my life!