An Earth Moving Anniversary

On Wednesday, Josh & I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.  It's gone so quickly, especially these last 2 years in our house:

Our cruise - the vacation we've been imagining since before getting married - is just a little over 2 weeks away, but we didn't want to completely pass over the day of our anniversary, so we planned for a simple, but SO US date.

We went for a hike! (The 5th anniversary is the wood year, so why not go see some wood?)  We found a new park (Eisenhower City Park) that we hadn't been to before & went to find an adventure.  Some paths are paved, some are very rocky, so there's lots to do in a rather small patch of wilderness right by Camp Bullis.  As we started along we heard a BIG boom and felt a little tremor in the ground (someone must have been blowing up something over there).  I thought it was great that the earth moved for our anniversary date.
(I'm adding this video just in case future peoples read this & don't have a clue what I'm referring to, BUT this doesn't date me! It's an oldie, blame my parents that I know it.)


The point of interest for the hikes in the park is a tower that was built by a local birdwatching club. 

It's a great view from up there - you can see all the way to downtown, 6 Flags & La Cantera, UTSA, even the tower by our neighborhood.

After hiking we went to a restaurant I've been dying to try - Auden's Kitchen. 

The owner is a James Beard nominated chef & I was giddy with anticipation of a Tof Chef-esque dining experience.  The service was great, & they treated us to dessert since it was our anniversary, but Josh & I both just kinda shrugged our shoulders about the meal.  I really wanted to be wowed by a food that I could never figure how to make at home.  The pork chop I got was as hard as a rock (which I can easily do at home), so the star of the plate were the crispy potatoes - they're small, whole potatoes, cooked so the insides are super soft, then maybe fried somehow to make the skins insanely crisp like a chip.  Yummy & fun to eat.

After hiking, I wanted to get a little dolled up for our fun dining experience, so I excused myself to the ladies room & swapped clothes, shoes, & polished up a bit.  My favorite part of the night was coming to the table & seeing Josh's eyes pop open as he said, "Wow!" 

 Woo! I still got it!

Woo! I still got it!

It was a lovely date - having hours to just talk to each other about anything. Make some plans for the new year, reminisce about our 5 years, it was a real pleasure.

There are lots of kid updates too, but maybe I can get to them a bit later.  We're throwing a kid's New Year's party tomorrow & I've got lots to do to get ready.