Friday, November 6, 2009

Anniversary Celebration - Proof

Thanks to the excellent recommendation of our friend, Emma, Jeff and I decided to go to Proof for our anniversary dinner. Proof is a wine bar and restaurant, and the food was amazing. Here's what we had:

To Share
Plate of House Made Pates & Terrines
Olives with Citrus & Thyme

For Me
Warm Flatbred with Sheep's Milk Ricotta
Honey & Spice Glazed Pekin Duck Breast

For Jeff
Abalone "Three Minute" Ceviche
Fennel Crusted Pennsylvania Pork Loin

All with a very nice bottle of Pinot Noir.

It was an excellent dinner - the food was great and the atmosphere was cool and comfortable.


Jeff and I spent a while during our dinner trying to remember things from each of the six years that we've been together. A few highlights:

Year 1: Jeff and I went to London together November 14-18. We actually planned the trip before we started dating, so that we had only been dating two weeks when the trip happened. This is the first year Jeff met my family (as my boyfriend) - when he visited Minnesota for the first time in January. I met his parents for the first time in February (on Valentine's Day!) and tried my first ever Maryland crab cake. We also spent this summer living in DC (me) and Baltimore (Jeff) and braving the beltway almost every weekend to get together (foreshadowing, perhaps?).

Year 2: I spent this year in England, and Jeff played Party Poker while doing homework to build up enough savings to visit me five times. It’s the first year we spent Christmas with each other’s families. This was also the year of our three week Eurail trip, during which we celebrated the new year in Paris, and also visited Barcelona, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Munich, Venice, Florence, Rome, Pompeii, Patras, and Athens. Wow… thinking about this really makes me want to do it again… but this time without sleeping on trains every other night.

Year 3: This was the year Jeff turned 21, and we had a big party for him that coincided with the Thanksgiving dinner at Theta Xi – I doubt I’ll never be able to plan anything better. It was also my senior year, so there was graduation in the spring – the first time our parents and extended families met as a group. Jeff and I had an awesome summer room in his fraternity, and this was the summer that my sister came to live in Boston for the first time, so Jeff really got a chance to know her (and we introduced her to her boyfriend – they’ve now been together about 3 years).

Year 4: Jeff and I spent this year shuttling between Medford, where I lived with some friends, and Boston, where Jeff was living. We had lots of big parties out in Medford to celebrate finally having a house (and a job). This was Jeff’s graduation, so there was another round of getting the families together. We also went on a celebratory trip to Punta Cana.

Year 5: This was the year Jeff and I moved to DC – we moved into our first apartment (which we still live in now). I started at GW, and Jeff was at UMD. We did a lot of exploring around DC this year, trying new restaurants and getting to know our neighborhood. It’s the year we met a lot of people who ended up becoming our good friends – Stephanie, Eric, Brian, Adam, Beth, Emma (who recommended the restaurant) and lots of others. We took our first spring break trip together – to Ecuador – and it was amazing. We also lived in Barcelona for a summer, meeting more great friends and enjoying a summer of amazing Mediterranean cuisine. Oh, patatas bravas.

Year 6: This was the past year (so you'll hear all about it in the upcoming Christmas card) – still living in DC, still going to graduate school. We went on a trip to Arizona with my family, watched Obama’s inauguration together on the National Mall, and went on trips to Europe and Peru. We spent the summer in DC, for the first time since Year One, above. :) And we went to my brother's wedding - the first wedding of a family member for either of us.

Of course, there are a million other things that have happened over the past six years, and I won’t try to write about them all. It really has been amazing, though, and we’re both excited for all the years to come.

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