Last year, for our anniversary, we stayed at
The Raphael Hotel. It was where we spent our wedding night and we thought it'd be fun to go back there to celebrate. It was very romantic...rose petals, champagne, private jacuzzi tub. We watched fireworks from the hotel window. All in all it was a very nice night.
This year, since we had just bought a house, we decided it was okay to scale it down a bit. So Saturday, I planned a surprise date. Since we weren't able to leave town and go to the lake or anything, I decided to bring the lake to us. We went to the lake at
Shawnee Mission Park during the day. We rented a pedal boat and went out on the water. James had never been on a pedal boat and I hadn't since I was a kid so we both had fun. After a while, our legs got sore, so we went back to shore and traded the pedal boat out for a couple kayaks. We had a blast on the kayaks. The only other time we'd kayaked was on our honeymoon in St. Lucia. After we had thoroughly fried our thighs (must have missed that spot with the sunscreen) we left the water and found a shady spot to lay down a blanket for a picnic. The picnic was nice despite getting attached by a posse of 40 geese. James managed to run them off though. After lunch, we lay in the shade and talked while enjoying a bottle of white wine.
Later that afternoon, we went to Town Center/One Nineteen and did some shopping. We went and looked around at
Z Gallerie and
Crate & Barrel. It's funny how much more fun it is to look at house decor than clothes.
After our mini shopping trip, we went to Brookside to a restaurant called
Julian. James and I both love the show "Top Chef" and on the most recent Masters season was a contestant named Celina Tio who was from...Kansas City. Julian is her restaurant and we both wanted to check it out. I think we were both happy with dinner (and the wine, of course) and I got particularly excited when we had Celina herself deliver our appetizer. I made a huge dork of myself by telling her how much I love her.
We concluded our night at home with yet another bottle of wine (third one that day). Then we headed to bed early so we could be well-rested for our housewarming/anniversary/4th of July party the next day.
Sunday, we spent the day getting ready for our party. Around 4:00 people started to come over. We had washers, bags, and hillbilly golf set up in the backyard. We drank good drinks and ate good food and shot many shots. All in all, I would say it was a very successful party and our couches provided a nice sleeping spot for those who had a little too much to drink.
On Monday, James and I went to lunch and then lounged around most the day "recovering". That evening we went to dinner and a movie followed by fireworks at the Great Mall. We snuggled up in the back of the Escape, opened the tailgate, and watched them from the parking lot.
Another great 4th of July and anniversary!
