Our one-year anniversary was coming up, and we hadn’t planned anything for it. I really wasn’t in the mood for planning anything, and I felt like we’d waiting too long to book anything. So I went to take a shower, and in 10 minutes Colton booked our entire weekend full of activities.
I have to pause here and say how terrible Colton is at surprising me. He usually gets so excited that he ends up telling me what Christmas present, birthday present, or event he’s got planned for me. Or he thinks he’s being sneaky and gives me all these hints and I usually figure it out after the first one or two. That being said, he did an excellent job of surprising me this weekend.
First thing that happened was breakfast in bed. Which is quite the feat to accomplish because if he even moves slightly in bed I wake up. Somehow he woke up before the alarm went off, which never happens, and got out of bed without waking me up, which never happens, and proceeded to make breakfast without waking me up, which also never happens.
My favorite type of food- Breakfast food! To quote Parks and Rec:
Leslie: Why would anybody ever eat anything besides breakfast food?
Ron: People are idiots, Leslie.
Perfectly cooked Jimmy Dean sausage, Mickey Mouse waffles from the Better Homes and Garden recipe, and fried eggs cooked just long enough for the yolk to be custardy. (There’s a story to the Micky Mouse waffles which will require it’s own post later.)
After that, I dressed and got in the car with our camera. Our first stop was the Farmington Bay Bird Refuge. We spent a while there watching some birds we hadn’t seen before, and listening to the cacophony of chirps, whistles, and calls that echoed across the marsh fields.
Hawk of some sort.
Pelican
Great blue heron
That heron in the front, if you look closely, is eating a frog. You can kinda see its legs hanging out of the bird.
Ibis in the front, don’t know what the white and tan ones are.
Killdeer
White faced ibis
White faced ibis
Yellowheaded blackbird. Their calls are really cool.
Red-winged blackbird
Cute little pied billed grebe.
After that, we stopped by Zupa’s at Farmington Station for soup and sandwiches. Then we went home and hung out for a bit, with me wondering the whole time what else in the world Colton had planned. Mid-afternoon we got back in the car and started driving. I didn’t figure out until we were almost there that we were headed towards Wheeler Farm, where our reception had been the year before. During our reception, we hadn’t had time to wander the farm, so I was pretty excited to be able to see what our guests had seen. When we were there exactly a year before, all the trees were in full blossom. This year the blossoms had already gone to be replaced by leaves. It’s funny how weather can vary so much year to year. I felt so lucky that we were able to get the beautiful blossoms in our pictures.
We had dinner reservations somewhere right after Wheeler Farm, and we had brought nicer clothes to change into, but they weren’t super nice, so I still couldn’t figure out where we were going. We rolled into the parking lot of Market Street Grill, and ended a perfect day with my other favorite type of food: seafood! From our seat we had a good view of the wisteria hanging from the outside of the building. The food was delicious, and it had been a wonderful day of celebrating our marriage with all the things we liked doing. (Okay, I might like seafood a lot more than Colton, but he’ll eat it.)
