Eight is Great!

We are celebrating anniversary number eight. Actually, we celebrated already a few days early. But wow, I'm still a bit in shock it's actually been eight years. Eight is my favorite number. It just worked out we got married in August which is month number eight. Golden anniversary? Let's just call it that, because two was...well, too early. I don't even remember anniversary number two, or the other seven for that fact. I do remember one was spent in an airport. I think that may have been number two....

We went big this year. we paid for a babysitter for the entire day, dropped our kids off, and went off on our adventure. 

No kids or car seats in the back 😱

We started off with lunch at Korean bbq. We've done Korean bbq once with children, and let me tell you, if it weren't for the other people we were at dinner with, it would not have been enjoyable at all. Constantly moving breakables and spillables away from tiny hands is a tiring task. This time, we got to do it without kids. Amazing!

I enjoy the meat a lot, but that's not my favorite. 😏

After stuffing our faces for nearly two hours and eating at least 4-5 pounds of food, we went downtown to see the DMA. I remember going to the DMA numerous times growing up as a child and teenager, but I never felt like I fully enjoyed it. There were exhibits I still remember to this day which were memorable, but for the most part, it just felt like walking through a giant building "observing."

I enjoyed our visit this time much more. I even came across a painting painted on our anniversary....just 95 years prior! The exhibit actually pointed out the date in the lower right hand corner. But I happened to see it in the painting itself first before reading the card. I'd like to attribute it to fate to discover this little gem, but in all honesty, I think it's because that's the corner of the painting which hit eye-level when I was standing relatively close to it. 😆

I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the artwork a lot more than I used to. Of course an important part of art involves simply looking at it, but the descriptions provide a nice framework which influences the way you look at it. I appreciate that particular aspect more now. It comes with age, go figure.

We stopped by again at the creative station at the museum. We first came across this section about five years ago when they provided some simple materials and let you construct your own sculpture. This time, we went again and created a few more masterpieces. Try guessing the names of our sculptures and who made which!

After we finished our time at the museum, we walked over to the restaurant for dinner. The last time we made this walk was February of 2017 with much nicer weather. Although a hot July day, it didn't feel terrible. Or I just had really good company which made me not notice the heat. But I did notice the naked mannequins at Stanley Korshak 

Love the color scheme artwork. Disappointed not to see more dresses.

We made it to Uchi for happy hour only to realize we didn't make a reservation and their waitlist was quite long since it was Saturday afternoon. Clearly it's been a really, really, REALLY long time since we've stepped into a fine-dining establishment. Oops. We figured we'd wait anyway since we were already at the restaurant, we didn't have other plans, and we had a babysitter so we could afford to sit around and wait without fussy children. We ended up waiting nearly 1.5 hours, ha. It actually didn't feel that long because they served us small appetizer samples and water, and we people-watched from the restaurant lobby. I was newly informed on the newest fashion trend in dresses because I saw about 6-8 women wearing the same style of dress. We watched countless people with no reservations leave after hearing how long the waitlist was going to be. And we watched a couple leave almost yelling at each other after they finished their meal. That was strange. I'm glad that wasn't us after hearing how long the wait was going to be. Don't sweat the small stuff. More on this tomorrow...

They ended up getting us seated right as happy hour was coming to an end, but the waiter let us order off the menu anyway. Really delicious, as we expected. 

This was our second time eating at the restaurant, the first being five and a half years ago. It was as enjoyable as we remembered it to be. Maybe we'll be back in another five years. 

I had a lot of fun spending an entire day with just one person, and an adult for that matter. I didn't grow up with the mentality that paying someone to watch your children while you go out and enjoy yourself and spend even more money was worthwhile. But you know, it really is. We won't be doing this every weekend by far, but every now and then, it's a worthy splurge for sanity and some fun. 

Cheers to more years! 🥂