I'd Marry Him All Over Again

And I really want to, because when we got married, they didn’t have these. Okay, well they did, but they were "new" on the wedding scene, and we hadn’t ever heard of them. Every April, I tell Studly Man we hafta get married again so we can have one at our reception. He ignores me.

Since he won’t let me have another wedding (I LOVED being a bride), he compensated with a wonderful anniversary celebration. Last year at our church’s annual golf tournament, he won a gift certificate for a night’s stay here. We cashed it in on Saturday night. What a grand idea! It felt like a honeymoon trip all over again.

After we got Frick and Frack settled at my parents’ house, we journeyed on to Frisco to begin our adventure. (Those dawgs would not be happy with their mother for calling them Frick and Frack, but hey, they can’t read.) When we arrived at the hotel, Studly went to park the car while I went to check us in. My eyes rolled back in my head and a seizure ensued I was so excited when I entered the lobby. It was beautiful and hip, and I knew we were in for a treat. After presenting the gift certificate to the nice young gentleman at check-in kiosk number 1 (no long traditional check-in counter), I received our room key. Cracked me up.

All of the keys have one of about 20 clever little sayings on them. Studly’s said, "Take your children on an outdoor adventure.... in our lobby." Mine was cuter. But then, that’s not surprising. But I digress.

While I waited for Studly to arrive from Outer Mongolia the parking garage, I whipped out my trusty camera. I am my father's daughter, and I took pictures of just about everything! As I've always had a love for beautiful art glass, I took lots of pictures of what we saw. I also love beautiful light fixtures and chandeliers, and imagine how happy I was to find beautiful colored art glass light fixtures and chandeliers! (Those three sentences are for Susan. She says I make her listen to all my stories more than once, so it’s her own fault for coming here to read about a story she’s already heard. 'Cuz o' that, I cut and pasted sentences from an email I sent her. That'll teach her. So there.) Anywho, here are some of the beautiful lights in the hotel’s lobby.

Studly arrived, and Jason, our young bellman, escorted us to our room with our puny little overnight bag proudly riding on the hotel’s huge luggage cart. It looked so lonely all by itself, but Jason gave it (and us) the royal treatment. He opened the door to Suite 424 and little bluebirds circled above our heads and serenaded us in sweet song we entered our home for the evening. It was beautifully appointed.


After we embarrassed ourselves by taking geeky pictures of a hotel suite changed our clothes, we left the hotel for dinner at Nicola’s. If you live in North Texas and have never been to this fine establishment, you have been cheated. We had an early reservation and got there before the throngs of weekend revelry seekers arrived. It was beautiful and quiet and wonderful. And it had chandeliers. LOTS of chandeliers! So I threatened bodily harm asked Studly to snap a few shots.
Our waitress noticed our attempts at documenting our evening, so she volunteered to take a picture of the happy couple together. Not bad...After a glass of wine and some fabulous bruschetta, we ordered dinner. I had Lasagnetta, one of the house specialties, and it was indeed special. It was chicken and artichoke hearts layered with lasagna, Ricotta cheese, and tomato sauce. To die for! Studly had Filetto di Manzo which was black pepper-crusted beef tenderloin with grilled vegetables, red wine and gorgonzola sauce. It was mediocre only in that it was HIS dinner and not mine. Both entrees were out.of.this.world. Jealous much?

Thinking we couldn’t possibly eat another bite, we asked for the dessert menu. The choices were legion. After a brief discussion, decisions were made. The gentleman had Affogato al Caffe (that just SOUNDS romantic) which was vanilla bean gelato with a shot of espresso and Cantucci almond cookies. The lady (that’s me) had Semifreddo al Croccantino. That’s semi-soft Amaretto Italian gelato with crushed almond praline topped with a touch of chocolate sauce. My mother taught me never to lick the bowl in public, but hey, Momma wasn’t there! Oh.my.goodness. Perfection in a bowl.

Being thoroughly satisfied with our dining experience and desiring to get out of the fray of the weekend rush, we walked outside to a gorgeous Texas evening and began our stroll through the plaza filled with restaurants and shops and theaters and flowers and fountains and people listening to a wonderful street musician. It was a great way to pass the time until the next portion of the evening began.

We went to the Angelika and saw Smart People. It was enjoyable, but the best part was running in to our very dear friends, Amy and Chris, as we were exiting the building. They were celebrating their first wedding anniversary and were on their way into the theater to catch a flick as well. It was great to see them and share the celebration of two anniversaries.

Then it was back to our palace for the evening. We rested well and slept in late. When we finally got dressed, we went down to the complimentary cooked-to-order breakfast that included fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal, French toast, crispy bacon, buttermilk biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs with cheese, sausage, grits, ham, steak and omelets. We ate until they made us leave we couldn’t eat another bite.

It was a wonderful celebration. We picked up Frick and Frack and went home to get our insulin.

Happy sixth anniversary, Honey. I love you.