Two Year Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday, Terry and I celebrated our two year anniversary!

(Any excuse to post wedding pictures, right?)

Terry had to spend Monday night in San Diego for work, so we were bummed not to get to see each other until the evening, but that gave me plenty of time to set up for Terry's gift. My family has a tradition of sending each other on scavenger hunts to find gifts at Christmas, so I took that idea and gave Terry part of his gift at each location.

Honestly, setting up for his scavenger hunt was super challenging--have I mentioned how small our apartment is? 650 square feet is not a lot of space within which to send someone looking for clues, especially since I was trying to avoid letting him find the gifts before he'd gotten that clue. So I found some--er--unconventional hiding places: the bathtub (I closed the shower curtain and prayed he wouldn't want to shower after he got home), our car, the back patio (closed the blinds just enough so he wouldn't see outside), the bedroom (hid that gift on my side of the bed so he wouldn't notice until it was time), and the couch (I kept that one hidden until the end and then sneaked it out when he was looking for the bedroom clue).

Each stop had a small part of the gift, a framed photo from our wedding, and the next clue. I already had a bunch of frames, so those were a last minute just-for-fun idea, and I used some stamps to jazz up the clue cards. But overall Terry seemed to love the hunt, and I had so much fun following him around as he found each gift.

The first stop--the bathtub--was chilled champagne and our wedding flutes. Obviously this had to be the first stop so we could pop the cork and sip while Terry hunted!

The hunt itself was fun, but coming up with a gift idea was super difficult, which is why I'm sharing with you. We're trying to keep up with traditional gifts each year--year one is paper, year two is cotton. Cotton?! It sounds so simple, doesn't it? But I struggled for weeks trying to think of something better than a t-shirt (not that I have anything against t-shirts...I'm just convinced that Terry just already owns all the t-shirts. In the whole world. Seriously). If you search "cotton anniversary gifts" online, you'll find quite a limited selection. Like towels.

So instead I came up with the idea to take Terry to the Hollywood Bowl, one of our favorite activities we've ever experienced in LA. And since that has nothing to do with cotton, I added some BBQ-themed gifts that would help us prepare a picnic for the night of (at the Hollywood Bowl, you can bring your own picnic to enjoy before the show). In other words: "Terry, here's your gift, but you have to make dinner for it!" :-)

The gifts included:

• A cotton tablecloth
• A BBQ towel, cedar wood plank, grilling sauce, and instant meat thermometer (recommended by our grilling class teacher)
• A bottle of Argyle sparkling wine (it sounds like a stretch, but Argyle is a popular clothing pattern, so I figured it works for a "cotton" gift)
• Tickets to the Hollywood Bowl

Terry gave me the absolute perfect gift: a bathrobe (which I've been hoping for for quite awhile) and a gift card to Bliss Spa to get a massage! He did a great job, too, because our apartment gets super hot and I become a sweaty beast when I get ready in the morning, so he made sure the robe is lightweight and ends at the knee. What a guy. :-) 

For dinner last night, Terry fired up the grill to BBQ bison tri-tip and did a PERFECT job grilling it. We used it to make sandwiches, also inspired by our grilling class: arugula, blue cheese, brie cheese, fig jam, French bread. So tasty!

And for dessert, Smitten Kitchen's Tiny but Intense Chocolate Cake from her phenomenal cookbook (it's only six inches in diameter, and we ate about a third of it between the two of us). So little but delicious!

We had a blast celebrating, and we're going out to dinner tomorrow night to finish up the fun!