Monday, March 10, 2008

The Curse of Our Anniversary

Can you believe that Chad & I have survived 5 years of marriage? We celebrated 5 years on Saturday. Yeah! It's a good thing the past married years have played out well -- because our anniversaries tend to be a disaster. Case in point:

Year 3: I got terribly sick during our nice evening out at the Cheesecake Factory.

Year 4: Kel was just 2 1/2 months old and we were suffering from sleep deprivation. "But it's our anniversary", we thought; so we dropped Kel off with Grandma and were so tired we didn't want to venture too far. We ended up at our local dive bar/restaurant, The Lakes Lounge, for a less than memorable dinner.

This year we thought we would break the curse!

Chad arranged for us to meet up with some friends for a morning of shooting. Why not? Sounded like something fun I had never done. And in fact....it was! Thanks to Kimber & Adam!

Next, we went to run some errands and come home to relax while Kel napped and then head out to dinner. The errands wore us out and we came home and tried to catch a few ZZZs. Didn't work too well...phone rings, motorcycles racing down the street, etc. Next I tried to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies for a Sunday lesson and they turned out miserably. I refused to let them out of our house. [Thanks to my Mom who later rescued the batch!] Next, my Mom comes to watch Kel and she mentioned to us one of the tires on the car looked a little loose earlier in the day. I went out to help Chad by driving it up and down the street. Once while backing up to park it again, I backed right into my Mom's car. Luckily, neither car received any noticeable damage. The tire just needed to be tightened.

Now, it's off to dinner. We headed out to a Brazilian steakhouse, Pampas, at Planet Hollywood. I thought it would be a fun experience and Chad would have a blast since he served his mission in Brazil. We were about 10 minutes late for our reservation because the parking garage was a mess. The hostess informed us we were late and would have to wait an additional 10-15 minutes. OK....except for the fact they sat a group who walked in right in front of us. We got seated and ordered the traditional rodizio style meal where the waiters bring all the meat you can eat around to your table. The meat was all mediocre and nothing to brag about. Chad never received a refill of his drink -- in fact, we only saw our waitress once during the meal. After being a bit frustrated we asked for our check. It took the waitress another 5 minutes to bring it and then she left our table before we could give her the credit card. We were so frustrated we stood up, put our coats on and headed to the hostess stand to have the hostess run our credit card. Our waitress saw this and hurried over to take it from us. It then took her another 5 minutes to get it back to us and don't mind she filled another table's water in passing. Chad signed the bill and we headed out and stopped the hostess and asked if service and food were always this poor. She said, "Oh, we are really busy tonight and down a waitress." and shrugged her shoulders like she had other things to worry about. Are you kidding me? Thus -- I will never recommend Pampas Brazilian Steakhouse.

To top the evening off -- halfway home Chad figured out that he did not have his credit card. He had left it at the restaurant.

From now on, we are going to ignore the fact that it is our anniversary and pick another random day of the year to celebrate.

But -- I still love my buddy and was happy that we did laugh through all the catastrophe!

4 comments:

Jeanine said...

Nick and I feel the pain of the anniversary curse, but we sure got a good laugh out of your story. So thanks for the humor, if nothing else good comes out of your anniversary you can use it to humor the rest of us!

Unknown said...

Happy Anniversary (even though you had bad luck another year!) At least it will always be meorable--I couldn't tell you what Matt and I did for our last anniversary. Maybe when our kids are grown we will go on exotic vacations for our am=nniversary--until then, we will have to settle for dinner out! :)

--Jen Roper

p.s you know they say when your baby wants to the diaper off, it is time to start potty training--:)

Lenzi Woodbury said...

Happy Belated 5th Year Anniversary!!! That's awesome! **Chad told me about the restaurant and how un-authentic it was and about the service but he FAILED to mention that this was your ANNIVERSARY DINNER!!! I haven't had an "official wedding anniversary" yet but I feel the same way about Valentine's. There's too much pressure for it to be all romantic and uninterrupted but we live in the real world where there are kids, work, busy restaurants, etc! Maybe let me steal the WALKING Kel-Monster (congrats! congrats! congrats!) one of these upcoming weekends and you can go "unofficially" celebrate your anniversary.

Ence's said...

Oh, I am really sorry, but Happy Anniversary!! Maybe next year order in. :)