It's been four years since Mike and I said "I DO!"....and I can't even believe how quickly time has flown. Our marriage has evolved quite a bit since our 3 year anniversary in all the most wonderful ways possible. Since we've celebrated 3 years, we went on three fantastic vacations to Turks & Caicos, Greece and the UK, we bought a house/moved out of the city, and we found out we were FINALLY expecting!!!! Such a huge year for us to grow together as a family and take on new challenges and life changes. This year also saw the fundamental shift from us enjoying the city life relatively care-free, to being a bit more fiscally responsible as we think about and plan for our future. So I guess you can say, that we transitioned to being grown ups!!! Since this is an even numbered anniversary, that means it was my turn to plan the anniversary dinner. Perfect - have a 7.5 month pregnant lady, who can't drink or travel or do anything too physical, plan the biggest date night of the year! The traditional gift of 4 years is fruit and flowers. This one was hard....WHAT IN GOD'S NAME can you do with fruit and flowers. I was NOT about to send my husband an edible arrangement. And even though wine tasting or vineyard getaways are a great option for 4 year celebrations - that just wouldn't be entertaining for a lady who is exercising sobriety (for just 9.5 more weeks....and then I'm having an old fashioned).
So, I had to really rack my brain here. And I came up with a very Mobley (and festive) solution. First comes presents. I'm not sure my husband would appreciate me sending him flowers to work, nor does he particularly crave fruit. BUT...if there is one thing that he DOES appreciate, it's festive attire - which usually involves flowers and fruit!!! I shopped at all of Mike's favorite retail stores for "costumes" including Tommy Bahama, TABS (because Bermuda shorts are a party on the inside!), Vineyard Vines and Island Spirits (yes, that's a real company) to come up with the complete head-to-toe outfit. Everything was adorned with either fruit or flowers. But the piece de resistance....my friends...was the Yoda Hawaiian print Vans I found on Amazon. If there is an article of clothing to sum up my husband, it would be these shoes. Second comes the event. Last time I was in charge, I obviously was not pregnant and I was a bit more adventurous. But this big belly didn't preclude me from wanting to still plan something thoughtful! I (along with my team at work) racked my brain to find restaurants that were named after fruit of flowers - whether it was in English or not, didn't matter. On one of our drives home from the city (yes, we drove in a few times last week), we passed the Cloisters, and it occurred to me that in 5 years of living in New York City, we had never made it out to the Cloisters. Upon doing some further digging, I discovered that there was, in fact, a BRAND NEW restaurant that opened up at the Cloisters, right in the middle of all the beautiful gardens and lush landscape.....and it was aptly named NEW LEAF!
The restaurant (albeit new, and still working out some logistic kinks) was so sweet and was very nicely done. After it's been running for a little longer, I'd highly recommend it to my friends (they need some more time to beef up their dessert options). What is more impressive though was the setting. Overlooking the Hudson, during a gorgeous sunset, on a perfect spring evening - just magical. The past four years have been the best of my life, and this year was just the icing on the top of our delicious cake of life - and it will only get better as we grow our little family. This was the last year of babysitter-free anniversary celebrating, and the last year as the two of us - so it was flawless. When shopping for a card for Mike, I found one that simply said "I love our love". It couldn't have been more perfect. We're silly and we parade around in costumes. We embrace every opportunity to live life and see the world. We work as a team to achieve our goals together. And we strive to seek out the "happy" in every situation, even when life throws us unexpected curve balls. So yes, I love our love - every single second! I can't wait to celebrate 5 years with little America in the picture next year - but 5 years is on you Mike - TAG, YOU'RE IT!
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