Our Anniversary: The Details (Finally!)

Here's how we spent our anniversary. We actually kicked off the celebrating on Saturday night. We prepped for the big day by finally getting around to trying a new Italian pizzeria near our place called Ciao Napoli. It was delicious, and we'll for sure be heading back soon. We drank some good wine, ate some delicious pizza, and then we were stuffed.






Any and all plans on our actual anniversary were made by A.P. I flat out told him that I planned the wedding, so he could plan the anniversary. It only seemed fair. I had no idea what he had up his sleeve, but for some reason, I woke up on Sunday, and thought, "Man, it would be awesome if he was taking me for a massage." Guess what? He took us BOTH for massages! We went to the same place we went on our wedding day, Urban Oasis, which is by far my favorite place to go in Chicago even though it's hella expensive. We got hour long massages, and then after, had a steam shower, which was awesome.

After our massage, we came back to our place and chilled. I was happy A.P. scheduled a lot of down time in between all of the things we were doing. It made it a more relaxed day, which was necessary considering how exhausted I've been lately. After we relaxed for a while, we hopped in the car and started driving towards our next destination. I had no idea where we were going and didn't figure it out for a long, long time. Finally, after a bunch of guesses, I figured it out: Garfield Park Conservatory! I was so excited because I'd never been there, and have always wanted to go.

For those of you who don't know, I'm an avid gardener. With the exception of last year, I've always had a large, luscious container garden (sadly I've never been able to do more...until this year). Usually in the summer, you can find me on the back porch with the dog and the cat tending to my many, many plants. A.P. figured I'd get some inspiration for my garden this year, plus I could take lots of photos, which you all know is a hobby of mine. I started out taking a lot of photos with automatic settings on my camera, but eventually forced myself to go manual. Here are some of the better shots from the day:

Making a wish for another good year!

You have to excuse my immaturity with the next picture. I couldn't resist. It's actually two cacti, but when put together, it's one adult themed cactus!

Anybody know what the hell this thing is? We could not figure it out. This was the best picture I could take of it swimming/walking underwater. It looked like an alien, or the three-eyed fish in The Simpsons.

After spending a couple of hours at the Conservatory, we headed back home. A.P. had one more trick up his sleeve: a romantic dinner. Initially, he wanted to take me to the The Signature Room in the John Hancock building, which is on the 95th floor and boasts many spectacular views of Chicago. However, I just didn't feel like getting all fancied up, so he did some searching and found this new Moroccan restaurant by our place, so we checked that out. Neither one of had ever eaten real Moroccan food (I've eaten takes on Moroccan dishes, but never authentic Moroccan cuisine), so we were both pretty psyched. It was delicious, particularly this dish we had called Chicken Bastila. It is a pastry filled with chicken and other delicious things, and covered in powdered sugar and cinnamon, which sounds weird, but was SO delicious.


And that was it! A.P. really did a great job of planning everything. It was a wonderful, fun, relaxing day. I didn't do a lick of work either, which was REALLY nice. We didn't give each other gifts, but not on purpose. We've both been so busy we just haven't gotten to it. We're still planning on doing the traditional first year gift: paper. I actually know what I'm getting him, I just haven't had time to work on it at all. Better get going soon, huh?