Thursday, June 7, 2018

Happy Anniversary to Us!

June 6 was our 20th Wedding Anniversary! 

Eric worked half the day... I thought it was going to be the whole day, but he showed up just before lunchtime.  While I was getting bathed, Eric appeared with a bouquet of 20 red roses! 


20 red roses, 1 for every year we've been married.
He likes to do that for me.  
Honestly, I love it more than getting a ton of roses at Valentine's Day. 


A rosy selfie. 
It was a beautiful day for a perfect surprise. 

I thought he might make it home from work a little early, but really he was home super early, before lunch, and armed with flowers.  I was still in the bathtub even! 


The first shot I went to take of a closeup ended up using the flash, unintendedly, but I like the pic.


That's more like it. 
Velvety and soft, so perfect. 


Repeating our return to the scene of the crime. 

Since he was home for lunch, we returned to the scene of the crime. 
20 years ago, on our wedding night, we arrived at our hotel, and after changing out of my gown, I realized I was hungry.  We went downstairs, across the street to Steak-n-Shake for a late night supper.  Then upstairs at the mall for a movie, we saw the Truman Show on our wedding night.  

Blessedly, my mother in law was in town, and was able to take the kids. Since Eric was home early, she let us bring them over about 3, so we could go downtown.  
The hotel where we had our wedding night was called the Cantebury Hotel.  
The hotel was built in 1928, and was lovely, with high tea and that classic old feel. 
We celebrated our 10th Anniversary by spending 1 night at the hotel again in 2008.
But it didn't last.  In 2014, they got bought out, and refurbished by Le Meridien. 


Le Meridien

We decided staying at the "not-Cantebury" would be neat for our Wish List for our 20 years.  
When we had arranged Child Care, we made Reservations! 



Things have changed a bit.  
It's very simple decor, very European.  
The rooms are not large, because in the 20s who needed a large hotel room?! I suspect it really works well for business men in town from Europe.  It has a modern European feel now.  The rooms are small, but you expect that in a hotel building that's 90 years old. 
Still, it was nice and clean.  


Eric gave me his Grandmother's watch, refurbished, for my Anniversary. 
Isn't it just PERFECT?!   
I think Rose Gold is my new favorite metal!
I'd spotted it among her things, and grabbed it, hoping to fix it up someday. 
Someday is this year! 

Now it works, it's probably from the 40s I would guess, a Rose Gold 14K Bulova. 
Very dainty and ladylike! 
I love it! 

For our 20th we made a Wish List, and since we had some time, we decided to cross off a few more items of the List. 


Like riding the elevator in the Hyatt! 
When we were in college, we'd come downtown and park (parking was free late back in the days) walk around and ride the glass elevator in the Hyatt.   For my 21st birthday, Eric brought me to the Eagle's Nest for dinner.  It was expensive for the quality of food, which was good, but not that good. 
I have heard that hasn't changed, so we haven't been back.  But we did ride the elevator to the top.


What a neat view! 
We rode the elevator to the top, accidently got into the Eagle's Nest shuttle, spitting us out at the restaurant.  We took one look at the view, another look at the drink menu, and headed back down. 

Our hearts were set on another location for dinner. 


Dinner at Palomino! 
We used to come here often when a. Eric worked at the mall across the street, and b. we had money.
Back in our dating days.  
But we hadn't been here since we had kids, probably longer for sure!
Our 10th anniversary is the last time we thought about it, and we ended up eating at the Cantebury restaurant. Today though was all about Palomino! 


We split a bowl of Portobello Mushroom soup.  
Oh sweet Christmas! 
I'd forgotten how amazing this creamy mushroom soup was. 
We split a bowl, thinking we'd just share, and they brought it out to us in smaller bowls, already split out!  So nice! 


We split a chopped salad, and bought a bottle of wine. 
For dinner, I had salmon with gnocchi and peas.  I also added on a side of prawns (shrimp) and some potatoes that sounded Amazing, but came with the steak.  I got both.  Eric got scallops.  They are his favorite, and he always worries that they'll get messed up, oversauced.  But not this time! 
They were Excellent!

Wouldn't you know, we ate it ALL!?!


Dessert - we split an orange chocolate truffle from the South Bend Chocolate Company.
We didn't have any room for dessert at the restaurant.  But we decided to cross another item off our list (this is #4 for those keeping count) and decided to go on a Carriage ride downtown.  
Turns out the pick up/drop off point changed, to become right in front of the Chocolate Shop on the Circle. Oh the problems. 
So we stopped in for dessert.  And some goodies to go.


This was our starting point on the Circle at dusk. 


The Circle is all bedecked to Support our country.  
We love showing Patriotic support from Memorial Day through Flag Day and on through the 4th! 


Ready to ride! 
Did I mention we took one of these carriage rides on the night after our wedding?  
Our wedding was Saturday but we stayed 2 nights downtown, because we didn't leave for our honeymoon until Monday.  So on that Sunday 20 years ago, we had Brunch with my Mom while we opened presents, then headed back downtown for dinner at Palomino and a Carriage Ride.  
For our 10th Anniversary, we did the Cantebury and a Carriage Ride.  We'd only been able to sneak away for 18 hours because Christopher had just received his feeding tube 2 weeks prior, so we showed Mom how to feed him, for dinner, and came downtown, and were back to him before lunch the next day.  But that ride was the highlight, riding through downtown, child free, at sunset. 


This one was pretty Perfect too.  The sun was almost down, but it was darkening downtown. 
Even the Capital was lit gorgeously!


Selfies! 
We're pretty cute.  



What a great view coming back to the Circle. 
The old way started close to Illinois, near the hotel and Palomino. 
But returning to the Circle for the end of our ride, was a little bit Awesome too. 


The ride around the Circle. 
I tried something different this time, to record the journey in Time Lapse mode on my phone. 
I was happily impressed at how it turned out, it doesn't make me nauseous.  We'll see what you think. 


Narrow halls in the historic hotel. 
As we walked back to our room leisurely, I noticed a number of the small features that make this place interesting.  The halls are narrow, well, people were smaller back then.  And they can't exactly widen them in an historic hotel.  It's something we're not used to. 


Look at that crown molding and accents under the bulkhead.  This was where the mall meets the hotel, kind of a second floor mini lobby. 


I need the coffee in order to make the coffee. 
By morning, I was swearing at the coffeemaker, "Europeans!"  Don't they know how to give us dumb Americans a hint on how to operate the coffeemaker?  Because they didn't.  And they were really skimpy on sugar and creamer, probably because true Europeans drink it black. Not me.  I like coffee flavored sugar milk, and require it to function. Once I finally figured it out, I made Eric an espresso.  Verra Fancy. 


Then I got my shower, and got to drink the coffee. 
It didn't work so well making the coffee when I need the coffee. 
But the robe was nice.  


Our hotel, on the National Register of Historic Places.  



Last shot of our hotel.  
We were on the 5th floor, in the middle, where the cream colored limestone trim surrounds and tops the windows.  Very Cool.  

Unfortunately, since we our Anniversary fell during the week, Eric had a morning meeting at work, so we couldn't do a fancy brunch.  The hotel didn't even include brunch, and I hadn't heard anything amazing about it. So we ventured out for breakfast. 


After much debate, we finally decided on Qdoba by the hospital. 
You know, I'd never had their breakfast before?  They do breakfast burritos, you build them, just like their regular day menu, just instead of rice and beans, eggs and potatoes as the base.  
IT WAS AWESOME! 



What a handsome date! 
He thought I was a goofball for taking breakfast burrito pictures, but hey, after 20 years together, he knows I'll just take pics when the mood strikes.  And my mood was feeling so abundantly blessed after being able to sneak away for the night and celebrate our 20 years together.