Happy Anniversary

yosemite national park

What amazes me is the ability to love someone more each year. Where does that extra love come from? Is it stored in our bones? Or is the heart that powerful a muscle?

We had a gluttonous weekend, starting with dinner out Friday night at Southie in Oakland. We ate crab and pâté, meatballs and carpaccio, and got to feel fancy. On Saturday we watched the 5 o'clock Warriors game at Grand Tavern, which turned out to be much more sit down and less taverny than we had thought and we ended up relinquishing our table to the dinner crowd after polishing off a charcuterie board, a basket of fries and some drinks. We then headed to Penrose for dinner, to spend the gift certificate I received for Christmas from my seriously thoughtful and generous employers. Disappointingly, they were out of the Mount Lassen trout, but we had game hen nuggets that blew our minds, sea scallops on what we later determined to be pillows of fluffed butter, and some seriously memorable butternut squash tempura. On Sunday my grandmother had an art opening in San Francisco (it's on through the end of the month) so we ate bread and cheese for dinner. No complaints there. And then we both had Monday off for the Martin Luther King Jr holiday (thank you Dr. King!), so we walked to Wood Tavern for lunch where we were joined by our good friend Edmund. He pulled a real classy move and ended up treating us (thank you Ed!) and then we got drinks after. (Exhale. Now it's time to eat a kale salad and go for a run.)

We eat out maybe three times a month, so to go out three times in a weekend felt like we were living pretty lavishly. But hey, we've been together for TWELVE YEARS, and we're finally at a point where we can feel good about treating ourselves now and then, and that feels pretty great.

This photo was taken (by our friend Devin) at the top of Upper Yosemite Falls. Our third year of marriage has been the best yet. We got to spend a lot of quality time with friends and we went on a bunch of little adventures together. Professionally we both thrived and all the years of hard work and pinching pennies finally feels like it's paying off. We figured out where we want to be in the next year and how we're going to get there. It really keeps getting better. Even after more than a decade of loving this man, he still surprises me, and as we talk about what's next, I'm excited and grateful to have him by my side.

P.S. Last year I got all mushy and wrote a love letter. Also, photos from our wedding