4.20.17 - Belated anniversary celebration

Jack and I didn't get to celebrate on our actual anniversary (4/13) because he had a lot going on with school and we had Clara because Beth was out of town. Well Beth returned this week and generously agreed to watch Clara overnight so Jack and I could have a relaxing dinner together.

I wanted to try somewhere new, so I found a restaurant on Yelp that had high ratings but wasn't too terribly expensive, and I made reservations for tonight. I went ahead and wore a black maternity dress Julie lent me - it's actually the dress she wore to our wedding. I'd never worn it before but it was very comfortable and it did look somewhat dressy. It made a nice change of pace from the two pairs of maternity jeans I've been rotating between for weeks. Jack went through all the effort of shaving and wore dress jeans and a nice top.

He dropped me off at the restaurant while he looked for parking, and I chose a table for us on the patio out front. The weather was perfect for eating outside, and the sidewalk has passers-by we could watch but wasn't too busy, probably because it was a Thursday. We sat under an enormous and beautiful tree and admired the other trees along the street that appear to be growing oranges and lemons. Considering it's a relatively busy urban street, that was pretty cool.

I wish I could have had a few glasses of wine, but I enjoyed the restaurant's "mocktail," made of citrus fruit juices and a non-alcoholic ginger beer. I had two of them for what would have been the price of one glass of wine, so that was nice.

We ordered three tapas plates for $10: marinated olives, arancini, and piquillo peppers. They were all delicious. For dinner I got the chicken cannelloni and he got the salmon with asparagus risotto. They were both good but his was the best.

Then we split a chocolate lava cake for dessert.

It was just the right amount of food that we were able to finish everything without being ridiculously stuffed, and it took a nice long time: we were there probably near two hours and had plenty of time to talk and enjoy the weather. We talked a lot about subjects we typically talk about (Clara, school, the pregnancy, work) but it's still very different to be able to talk without interruption or hurry, focused on each other.

He also made me laugh a lot. For example the tree we sat under kept losing leaves in the breeze, and several times leaves would fall in his water glass. He finally gave up fishing them out and just drank some anyway and announced "I just ate part of that tree." For some reason I found that very funny.

While we were waiting for the chocolate lava cake we noticed an elderly man across the street clinging to a fence as he very slowly walked down the street. It looked like he was having trouble getting wherever he was going and for a while we watched him somewhat concerned, trying to see if he was heading for the gate up ahead that led into an apartment complex or if he was just walking along with no nearby destination. He did head for the gate, so Jack hopped over the restaurant patio fence and sprinted across the street to ask the man if he needed help getting to his apartment. When Jack returned he reported the old man had said he just got hit with a spell of vertigo while down the street and had decided to go back home, and that he was going to sit in the apartment complex courtyard for awhile before going inside. So Jack helped him to a bench in the courtyard and then left him alone. I felt very proud of how attentive my husband can be.