Our 3 Year Anniversary

We have been very busy up here in the NW. School ended for us last thursday and we hit the ground running:

Friday- celebratory dinner at Avignon Bar
Saturday- shopping, dinner at Cha Cha Cha, and Movie: Super 8
Sunday- 3 year anniversary celebration began with breakfast
Monday- Come home from our celebration and have a friend over for dinner
Tuesday- work, dinner & bowling with Caleb, Nina, Aunt Tracy and friends
Wednesday- errands, Birthday dinner for Caleb
Thursday- finally a home cooked meal.
Friday- Here we are at coffee. For the fun of it!!! Imagine that??!?!?

We've been enjoying every minute to its fullest potential and our camera, fortunately, accompanied us. So, on to the good stuff!

June 14th marked our three year anniversary. On year one we surprised each other: I planned half the day and Wes planned half the day. On year two we took a trip to Seattle. And this year we spent one night at Mcmenamin's Edgefield. Overall we had a really nice relaxing time. We both felt though that the service was at times disappointing but that wouldn't be a first for Mcmenamins. Aside from that we really enjoyed our stay and were happy to celebrate there.


We started off our anniversary celebration with breakfast at Slappy Cakes. I've shown slappy cakes on the blog several times before. This is the restaurant where you can make your own pancakes at your table. Wes had never been so we thought it would be something fun and different to do. Then we arrived to an hour long wait and instead decided to sit at the bar and order "grown-up" food. We'll have to try making our own pancakes next time I guess. Our food was DELICIOUS. I was actually quite surprised. We had a blast sitting at the bar:
I got an O.J. mimosa, and eggs benedict. Wes got a Grapefruit mimosa with eggs, and biscuits/ veg. gravy. Starting the weekend off right! ha ha



We arrived to Edgefield and had a bit of time before we could check in so we walked around through the gardens and peeked at the winery and distillery.


This is me being obsessed with the ivy covered wall.
After walking for a bit we found our selves relaxing in one of the many bars Edgefield has to offer.
We checked into our room, changed into our suits and headed straight for the soaking pool. The soaking pool is a heated, salt water, paradise. I know this might sound dramatic but for a split second I felt like I was in a pool in Hawaii- minus the palm trees and ocean view. And I guess we should all take into consideration that we haven't been swimming pretty much since we lived in California. But still, it was amazing and so relaxing. Add in the poolside "Tea Bar" which serves up handcrafted tea-cocktails -- good times.

Wes being the "whiskey-man" he is these days, knows what a good Old Fashioned should look like, taste like and smell like. Heck, even I know all of those things now. So when I went to pick our drinks up at the bar and saw that is was pink/orange I knew we'd have a good, we-know-how-to-make-a-better-old-fashioned-than-you-do, laugh.
My black tea mojito was quite tasty though!

Just a small section of the soaking pool and that building is the Ruby Spa where I had my massage the next morning. Its a full-blown salon in there, and they have what looks to be the cutest (and comfiest) mani/pedi area.
That night we saw the movie Source Code which Wes had been wanting to see. It was entertaining. This is the movie screen (definitely not as impressive as the Kennedy School theater).

The ceiling was painted like the night sky.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Mcmenamins loves details. I would argue that that is one of the things that Mcmenamins does best; their attention to detail really makes their venues special. Here are a couple of examples:

This was painted on the door in our room:

And this was in a random crack out in the hallway:


Breakfast the next morning- can you tell we look a smidge tired? We had a rough night sleep. The people above us partied until 3 a.m. and some small kids next door woke up at 6. Then after this I went and had a massage while Wes relaxed for a bit. We met up at the soaking pool afterward for a little bit.


Then randomly as we were roaming Edgefield one last time before departing we asked if we could have a tour of their distillery. If you haven't heard already (or you couldn't tell from the looks of Wes' Christmas loot), Wes has a healthy love of whiskey. Much like the way his father loves wine (well, we love wine too) Wes loves whiskey. He reads about whiskey for fun. So, because of this hobby I've learned quite a bit about the distilling process as well and therefore we were both quite delighted to get our own spur of the moment little private tour.

It smelt incredible in there and the guy showing us around was really nice. I think Wes and I both find the physics of the whole process fascinating. There is something to be loved about all things handcrafted, and so... add whiskey to the list! It's quite interesting really to learn about the way a Still works and the chemical reactions and such that occur.


After our tour we went to the gift store to take home a bottle of the whiskey we had just learned so much about.



It was great seeing you Edgefield! Another year of marriage down, boy how time flies. Thank you all for joining in on the ride. This blog has really given back to us in so many ways. I'm so thankful to be able to look back at posts written just after we got married until now. Thanks for tuning in and we are really looking forward to this next year!