Celebrating 7 Years

As I mentioned in my previous post, contrary to our previous anniversary celebrations, we decided to have a low-key celebration this year by cooking dinner at my apartment and watching a movie.

With football season in full swing, Alex and I rarely get to spend any quality time together, even though we we “see” each other just about every weekend.  Anyway, we decided that we’d rather cook dinner together and just relax rather that stressing about getting dressed up and going out to dinner.  I have to say, it was an excellent decision because it was perfect!

First up, the gifts.  We decided that because neither one of us really needed anything, we wanted to try and buy things that we BOTH could enjoy now or in the future (as in maybe something for our future home).  I stuck with this idea for my gifts, but Alex kind of strayed away from it (which you’ll see in a minute).  Oh well, I loved the gifts he gave me anyway!

My gifts to him:

A piece of customized letter art:

Alex and I have been purchasing a lot of letter art for married friends, but I wanted to give him a piece of his own.  Guys obviously don’t care about having their last name all displayed in their bachelor pad, so I had to come up with something different that we could both appreciate and hang in our future home.  Anyway, I found someone who had taken the letter art images on the UA campus, and picked out images that spelled ROLL TIDE from locations that were meaningful to us: 

• R – Bryant Denny Stadium (Lots of football memories of course!)
• O – Bidgood Hall (one of the Business buildings where Alex spent a lot of time while working on his business degree)
• L – Carmichael Hall (one of the education buildings – which obviously is a nod to my major)
• L – Coleman Coliseum – Where basketball games and gymnastics meets are held, but also the location for our graduation ceremonies
• T – Bryant Denny – See Above
• I – Denny Chimes – One of our campus landmarks
• D – Bashinsky  – Another business building
• E – Lloyd Hall – Where Alex spent a lot of his time when he was in the engineering program (before he switched to business)

I got the images as prints so I had to get the mat and frame and figure out how to display them.  I was pretty proud of how it turned out!

I actually gave it to him a couple of weeks ago when I went to visit him in Montgomery, just so I could help him find a place for it.  He LOVED it and put it over his TV. It looks a little naked around it, but we’ll figure that out later.

I also gave him an Alabama shaped cutting board and had the designer put a heart over Tuscaloosa.  The man that made it even featured it on his website!

Alex’s cutting board from the crafter’s website.  You can see the heart over Tuscaloosa :)

Alex loved both gifts, so I was excited…especially since I will hopefully someday have a chance to enjoy them too!

Alex’s gifts for me:

 

From L-R:  Shoo, Jimmy Choo:  A Modern Girl’s Guide to Spending Less and Saving More; Let’s Get Primitive:  An Urban Girl’s Guide to Camping; Non-stick flexible spatula, Cupcake injector and corer, pink chef’s knife and apron all from Williams Sonoma

Alex was not as excited about his gifts for me, but I thought he did a good job!  As soon as I opened them, he said “Now, I am only giving you things because they are all things you need and want.  I promise I’m not trying to get you in the kitchen” ;)

After we opened gifts, Alex fixed an AMAZING dinner of individual beef wellingtons, caesar salad, and lobster tail.

  It was SO good!  I was going to handle dessert, and I decided to do something similar to Melting Pot’s “The Flaming Turtle” since we’ve had it for anniversary dessert the past two years.  I bought all the ingredients and even a fondue pot, but unfortunately, the dessert never happened :(.  We were so full after dinner that we wanted to wait a bit before dessert, so we snuggled up and watched a movie, and I fell asleep before we got ready for dessert.  I felt so bad, but we kept all the ingredients to enjoy it later!

Even though we didn’t go out for dinner, I couldn’t have asked for a better anniversary celebration (except for the whole falling asleep on him and missing dessert part!). 

We didn’t get a table picture this year, but I made sure that we took our yearly anniversary picture regardless of how rough we looked ;)

Thanks babe for a wonderful night and 7 amazing years!  Here’s to many more anniversary celebrations in the future!  I love you!