Anniversary Weekend! (XOXO)

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog. This past week was a tough one.......Last weekend we celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary. Can you believe it? Where does all the time go??  Wow!!! We were married in 1986. Before the wedding, Bernice hosted a surprise shower for us where we received a lot of very nice gifts.

We had a very small wedding with only our immediate family. Even so, the bride did feed the groom.

For our honeymoon, we drove to Maine for a few days. This is where we discovered our love of sailing.

To celebrate our anniversary, we decided to spend the weekend in the city. We had been saving the gift certificate to Abe & Louie's that Matt and Amy gave us for Christmas for a special  night. Our wedding anniversary was the perfect event! Despite the really heavy rain on Saturday, we had a wonderful weekend!

We made hotel reservations to stay in the Back Bay. Our room was on the 32nd floor. It overlooked Boston Harbor

and the South End

and the Blue Hills

At night, the city looked wonderful from the 32nd floor!

We could see the lights of Fenway Park helping Big Papi, Yuk, Mike Lowell and all the boys beat Cleveland.

On this particular weekend, there was a lot of movie filming being done around the city. Cameron Diaz, Ben Affleck and Tom Cruise were all rumored to be filming in town. On Friday night, we had dinner at Legal Seafood at Park Square. We sat at the bar and enjoyed oysters, chowders and then we shared a fish and chips dinner. On the walk back from dinner, they were doing a scene in front of the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel. We stopped to watch for a while. But, we didn't see any movie stars.

On Saturday, it just poured and poured all day long - buckets and buckets - it was definately time for an ark. Since our hotel was part of Copley Place, we were able to spend all day inside. Starbuck's for lattes in the morning, a little damage at Lord&Tayor, and a stop at L'Occitane. And of course William Sonoma to get a little something for the kitchen - because after the wine, it's all about the food.

After all that shopping it was time for an anniversay lunch at Sel de la Terre where they make the best pomme frittes we've found - except the one's that Chez Neal makes on Friday's for French Night.

After a day of shopping, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Neal gave me a really sweet card and a wonderful box of chocolat. The card came home with us....

but we ate thechocolat.....

.

We had an 8:00 pm dinner reservation at Abe & Louie's.

So we went back to the hotel, put on our fancy clothes, and headed out for our anniversary dinner!

It was the first time we'd been to Abe & Louie's and we were not disappointed. Dinner was spectacular and it was a wonderful evening

When we left the restaurant after dinner, it had stopped raining and it was a nice evening. So we took a long walk down Newbury Street before we headed back to the hotel.

When we go up on Sunday, we got our Starbuck's and walked around the Back Bay. It was a nice morning and all the people were out just enjoying the city.

After a morning walk around the city, we checked out of the hotel and headed back to Lynnfield. We got back home a little after noon.

While we were at William Sonoma, Neal bought a Le Creuset casserole/dutch oven. Of course he couldn't wait to try it out when we got home.

So he made a Coq au Vin for dinner.

I decided to bake a cake for us to have for dessert.

Of course, it was Nana's orange cake that I made!

The weather was really nice on Sunday so while the cake was cooling and the Coq au Vin was simmering, we went on a bike ride.

When we got home, it had started to get dark. So we put our bikes away and our dinner was all ready!

Our kitchen has been a real workhorse for us all summer long - starting back in June when the Italians arrived. It's kept going strong all summer and into the Fall. So, after dinner on Sunday we cleaned it all up, tucked it in and turned the lights off. It always serves us well and deserved a good night's sleep!

As you can see, we had a great anniversay weekend. We hope that whatever you did that you stayed dry and enjoyed the weekend.