WIAW: Anniversary Weekend

Here we are at Wednesday again! I don’t know where the time goes, but it sure does fly. Thank you so much for all of your kind words on Monday’s post about my one year wedding anniversary. I actually read the post to my husband in place of giving him a card and he said he loved it, which obviously made me pretty happy!

We had a great weekend together and each took turns planning a day for one another. I chose Sunday and planned for a family hike at Caesar’s Creek. I knew I wanted to incorporate our dog Tebow into the fun as well in large part because it was also his birthday Monday!

Tebow turned one year old this past weekend so we obviously had a lot to celebrate! We don’t have kids yet, so our black lab is definitely our child right now. His gifts included a new leash and a Kong Wubba, which already has a nice rip in it a mere 12 hours after the purchase. I don’t think there is anything puppy-proof that boy can’t destroy! Anyhow, he is enjoying it while it lasts! Happy Birthday Tebow, please stay a sweet puppy forever and ever!

The hike was a little chilly, but was an absolutely beautiful example of a fall day.

We walked all through the woods along the trail paths, and Tebow sniffed until he couldn’t sniff anymore.

After the walk, we had a picnic under the shelter and finished just in time to hop in the car before the rain droplets began to fall from the sky.

Backing up a bit, Saturday was actually my husband’s day to plan for me. I thought this would be a perfect day to document for WIAW and walk you through a fun day.

Saturday morning, I had the option of either going out to breakfast or letting him make a meal for us. I decided I would prefer to stay in since I had a feeling we would be gone all day. Since I love to cook, I offered to help him prepare brunch. I thought making it together would be a fun way to spend the morning. On the menu was a mix of both salty and sweet.

Baked Turkey Bacon Spinach Omelet

Ingredients

4 eggs and 2 egg whites

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

1 cup baby spinach

½ green bell pepper, diced

5 slices turkey bacon, chopped

¼ cup shredded cheese, (we used Colby)

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees and spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Whisk together eggs, salt and black pepper in the baking dish.

Sprinkle spinach, green bell pepper, shredded cheese, and turkey bacon on the eggs.

Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Broil on high 2 minutes at the end for a nice golden top.

Lighter Banana-Walnut Waffles

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour

Baking soda

Baking powder

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup walnuts

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 mashed banana

2 eggs

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and walnuts. In a separate bowl, mix vanilla, banana and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently mix until combined.

Pour into waffle iron.

After breakfast we cleaned up, lounged on the couch for an hour, and then headed out. Our first stop was to Starbucks where I ordered a grande non-fat, half-pump salted caramel mocha. Fancy drinks can obviously get expensive, but I decided to splurge.

My first surprise of the day was a trip to an apple orchard! Now some people may not be excited about an orchard, but my husband knows me well and I couldn’t have been more thrilled! We hadn’t been to one since 2009, but nothing gets me in the fall spirit like picking apples and a pumpkin straight from the farm.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and it was a perfect day for fall activities outside! The place was packed, and although there weren’t many apples to pick off the trees, it didn’t stop us from picking out a half a peck to take home with us.

 

After the farm, we actually headed to another favorite place of mine, the grocery store! Ha, I know I am probably not the most exciting person, but I love what I love! We went to Costco first to walk around and got a lot of chicken, tilapia and produce for the week. After Costco, I was treated with Whole Foods, which I try not to walk into very much for budget reasons.  My mind may like it, but my wallet certainly does not.  One of the finds was a coconut water, which I am a huge fan of now!  Even if you don’t love coconuts, it’s possible to still think this drink is so good.

Next on the agenda was to head back home for a quick nap, a shower and to get ready to go out to dinner. At this point, I was trying to decide where we might be going, and as we started driving and got closer to the restaurant, I had no doubt in my mind about where we were going.

The Melting Pot is a restaurant very near to our heart. It is where we had our one year dating anniversary in 2005, where we went to celebrate after our engagement, and where we had our rehearsal dinner for the wedding. We love it not only for the delicious food and the sentimental reasons, but also because it is such a fun place to have a date. Dinner can take anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours, and it allows you to engage with one another in conversation and activity. We love date nights and we especially love those times when we can stretch it out as long as possible. It is a lot of food, but we always go with the Big Night Out so that we can sample a little of everything.

We started with the cheese course and went with the usual Cheddar Cheese Fondue, Aged medium-sharp cheddar and Emmenthaler Swiss cheeses melt beautifully with lager beer, garlic and seasonings. Sometimes I have a hard time straying from what I always get because if I order something else, I tend to always miss the classic. I figure why rock the boat sometimes when the usual just works?  (Sorry, no picture)!

For my salad though, I did decide to mix-it-up a little and ordered the California Salad, Mixed baby greens, Roma tomatoes, candied pecans and rich Gorgonzola cheese with Raspberry Black Walnut Vinaigrette.

When it was time for the entrée, we had a variety of meats including white shrimp, seasoned choice angus sirloin, herb-crusted all-natural chicken breast, teriyaki marinated sirloin, and pork tenderloin. I definitely dominated the teriyaki sirloin. So, so good! Our ‘Cooking Style’ choice was the Court Bouillon, which is simply Vegetable broth hand-seasoned with herbs and spices.

 

Dessert is always my favorite course and this time we split the Cookies ‘n Cream Marshmallow Dream chocolate fondue, Escape in a world of dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream flambéed and topped with bits of delicious Oreo® cookies.

The dipper options included fresh strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, Rice Krispie Treats®, marshmallows, pound cake and brownies. The pound cake, strawberries and cheesecake are my absolute favorite dippers, and the chocolate fondue was amazing! Of course, it is also pretty hard to mess up dark chocolate.

This was such a delicious and fun night that he had planned, and it definitely took me right back to all of our times there before. The weekend was amazing, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was awesome to make more memories with my husband and I couldn’t have been happier to have spent every second of my weekend with him.

Questions:

• Have you ever been to The Melting Pot? If so, what is your favorite item to order when you’re there?
• Are you a fan of doing fall activities like hiking, and going to apple orchards and pumpkin patches?
• What is the best thing you ate this past week?
• Do you have a restaurant that means a lot to you? If so, what is the memory you have attached to it?
• What did you do over the weekend?

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