Happy Fifth Anniversary!

Friday was our fifth wedding anniversary!

Two aging singles + the sacrament of matrimony + five years = one marriage, three moves (cross-country, state-to-state, in-town), one home sale and one home purchase, one major job change, and beautiful children ages four, two, and 30 weeks' in utero. God has been better to us than we merit! (But isn't that statement true in all circumstances?!)

Ha ha! This is the first photo in which I can see the end-of-pregnancy weight gain in my face.

We hired our beloved babysitter for the evening and went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants: Brio Tuscan Grille. We shared the roasted red pepper and mozzarella bruschetta. Chris ordered a Ceasar salad and I ordered a bistecca insalata (love those!). For our entrees, Chris enjoyed a veal Marsala classico and I had the penne Mediterranean. Chris got to have bread pudding for dessert while I ordered the most divine sampler I know of three creme brulee: mocha, vanilla, and caramel. Eating Brio's creme brulee is like eating something divine which I hardly dare call "food" because nothing else I taste on this earth seems to fall in the same category.

After dinner, we went to a delightful movie theatre we found recently. As Chris pointed out, "there is not a teenager in sight!" (only well dressed, polite adults!). The clean and fashionably decorated theatre even sells beer and has luxury seats available for purchase (larger seats in leather that recline). We watched "The Way Back," film about a group of men who escaped the Siberian gulag in 1940 and trekked 4,000 miles to freedom. I quite enjoy stories of perseverance under Communist and Nazi regimes (I've read so many priest-prisoner biographies from that era!) and this was no exception. I worried if a movie set in the wilderness could possibly hold my attention for more than two hours, but there were enough continual points of conflict that I was interested the entire time.

For a gift, Chris gave me a wonderful selection of chocolates he hand-picked from a local chocolatier. And winning many points for creativity, Chris ordered me five cans of coffee beans from Cafe Sant'Eustachio, the best coffee we've had, which we found on our honeymoon in Rome. There is only one importer in the United States we have found who brings in these beans from that tiny cafe, as Chris discovered when he bought me one can as a gift after I gave birth to our first child. Five cans for five years is pretty wonderful! I gave Chris a statue of the Holy Family, the best family after which we could try to model our little family.

Happy anniversary, honey! May there be many more!