Our First Anniversary

Last weekend we celebrated our first anniversary. Steve is amazing! He had so-o-o much fun planning our big night out :) Let's just say he did such a great job, nothing could top our first anniversary - that's fine by me!

Last Friday, we had dinner reservations at The Melting Pot in Scottsdale. It's a fondue restaurant. We had a private table complete with a curtain enclosing our booth. Talk about a romantic atmosphere!

When making a reservation, they schedule you for a two hour block of time. We ended up being there for 2 1/2 hours! It was fabulous...

The first course was a cheese fondue with vegetables, bread, and Granny Smith apples. As you can see in the picture, there was a burner built right into the table!

Course #2 was a salad.

The third course was the entree - we had a variety of beef, chicken, shrimp, duck, ravioli, vegetables, and potatoes cooked in vegetable broth. (Our waitress was good to explain to us the cooking times for each of the meats and vegetables.) We also had about six different sauces to choose from!

The dessert course was definitely our favorite! We chose the Yin and Yang milk chocolate and white chocolate fondue.

I've always wanted to go to the Melting Pot, but never had a reason to spend the money and go. I guess our first anniversary is the best excuse to go! It was a fun experience :)

After dinner, Steve blindfolded me as we'd packed overnight bags and I knew he was taking me somewhere for the evening. We drove for about 30-45 minutes...I had no idea where we could be going! Finally we got to the hotel. Steve got our bags and escorted me to our room.Still blindfolded - I'm sure we looked silly. It was fun :) I admit I had a moment where I wondered why he didn't check in...we simply went directly to the room...hmmmm...suspicious...

When Steve took off my blindfold, a romantic song immediately began playing and this is what I saw:

He had taken me to the same suite where we stayed on our wedding night a year ago!! And boy had he planned everything down to a tee. He had secured the exact same room; he had checked in early and brought my gifts, chocolates, red roses, our anniversary cake, music, games, and snacks to the room. Shortly after we arrived, a tray was delivered to our room - it was identical to the one left for us when we stayed there the night we got married! It had a variety of cheeses and crackers and chocolate-covered strawberries on it. In a bucket of ice was Martinelli's sparkling cider. He'd thought of everything!

It was a perfect evening. We gazed out the window (we were on the 12th floor), danced to the music, I opened my presents, and we ate cake and snacks while watching our wedding video. My brothers-in-law took video during the luncheon and reception last year. My sister Rachael and brother-in-law Dan turned our photos and the video into a wedding dvd that we watched on our anniversary. Everything was PERFECT!!

Steve is amazing. I was so impressed with his sneakiness and his perfect planning. As if I didn't already know before - he's a keeper :)

In conclusion, we've had a fairytale first year of marriage and we're excited for the next one! Happy Anniversary to my Love.