11 years...

If you look closely, you can see the Oakland temple in the background.  It was super rainy and all we had was a camera phone to try to get a picture of us in front of it.  I felt bad for the girls getting married that day.  One was being taken around under two umbrellas while the photographer tried to get a picture.  The other I think should forgo pictures as she made her bridesmaids wear royal blue dresses with hot pink sparkly high heels and a hot pink feather in their hair.  Really didn't need to be documented for her sake as one day she would realize that the look didn't really "work" for anyone.

Our anniversary trip started out as a surprise this year by me for Ben.  Although Ben commented that calling it a surprise is just a way to do something without having to discuss the cost... OK, maybe he is right:)  But in the trying to figure it all out, I had to tell him we were doing something as we are both active in our finances.  We ended up doing our honeymoon all over, just with an 11 year later twist. 

Instead of a dive pizza place, we ate at this restaurant, called Sauce.  We didn't take any pictures, so these are snagged from yelp where others took pictures of their food:)  In order to get there, we didn't want to have to try and find parking as the city was very busy this weekend (I guess there was going to be a huge Chinese New Year parade).  So we thought even in the rain we could walk as it was only a 20 minute walk.  The first half of our walk was in the pouring rain while we looked for a store with umbrellas.  We have no luck with umbrellas in our house.  If we would have had one to bring from home, we would.  However, no matter how nice or cheap the umbrellas we have, they always end up broken.  Don't know why or how but they do.  So there we are walking in a rain downpour in high heeled boots (well, those were mine, not Ben's!) to track down umbrellas.  We found some and made our way to the restaurant.  We were soaked and COLD when we got there, but they made me a hot chocolate not on the menu to warm me up.

This bubbly goo of food is one of the appetizers we got (our gift card from my dad and Molly for Christmas was for two appetizers, two entrees and two desserts, so we weren't just being pigs!)  The other one was called poutine, potato wedges covered in gravy with cheese....mmmm. I actually liked it better than the mac n cheese which is pretty famous, I guess.

This is supposed to be a picture of their pot roast, but it doesn't look exactly like Ben's did.  I ordered the "surf and turf" which was Kobe beef and scallops.  Both dishes were awesome, even though we couldn't finish them as we had stuffed out faces with the appetizers.  Of course, no matter how stuffed you are you have to get dessert.

Cinnamon sugar doughnuts with vanilla sauce.

And that's all I need to say about that except they were gone quickly and I could have eaten more.

Our waitress was so nice and was great with us.  Funny thing is that she wanted to give us something to celebrate our anniversary.  So during dessert she brings out tow very expensive small glasses of port...

We both looked at it, back to the smile on her face, back to the port and then to each other.  We had to explain to her that we don't drink, but it was a very nice gesture.  Oh no, she insisted, you will love this, it is very good stuff!  Um, no really we don't drink at all.  Like in Alcoholics Anonymous you don't drink? (at this point she felt terrible).  We explained it was religious, in which she looked a little relieved that she hadn't brought alcoholics some port.  She then had to hunt down some people in the restaurant to give it to.  Needless to say, we gave her a nice tip as it is the thought that counts.

So now that half this post is dedicated to our food, I can move on!

The only thing that would have topped this would be if she brought out some espresso next...

We spent Saturday morning at the Oakland temple, where we were married.  It was still raining, but now we had umbrellas:)  And our getaways are never complete without a trip to the mall.  We actually laughed about this as we were at the mall in Walnut Creek.  However, with five kids, you save any shopping you have to get done until they aren't with you.  Kids and the mall when you have specific things you need to get are not fun together.  I was stopped by a makeup lady who seemed to have a problem (in a nice saleswoman way) with my eyebrows.  I guess they weren't shaped right for her liking.  So she used some funky makeup to fix them until I could have them done.  Yup, I'll get right on that...
We also were able to find benches for our table that will seat all of us!  However, once that is all finished will be a special post all by itself as I celebrate being able to sit down and eat my dinner.