Anniversary Dinner

They say if it rains on your wedding day, it’s a sign of good luck. Does that apply to anniversaries, too?

I’m hoping that since our anniversary has been cold and rainy, our wedding day will be sunny and beautiful!

Despite the icky weather, Ryan and I had a wonderful time celebrating our six year anniversary.

Happy Anniversary!

Anniversary Roses from Ryan

After work we took Sadie on a 20 minute walk in the rain before piling into Ryan’s SUV to head to The Cheesecake Factory to relive our very first date.

We were seated quickly and took some time perusing the novel that is Cheesecake Factory’s menu. If there’s a restaurant with more menu items, I’d like to know about it because Cheesecake Factory’s menu is quite extensive.

After placing our orders we enjoyed the freshly baked bread from the bread basket. I had a piece of the wheat and a piece of the sour dough – both delish!

Ryan ordered the lentil soup as an appetizer and shared several yummy bites with me. It was hearty!

Lentil Soup

For dinner I dug into the French Country salad, full of candied pecans at goat cheese, while Ryan ordered the tomato basil penne pasta with chicken. Both were tasty!

French Country Salad

Tomato Basil Penne Pasta

I intentionally kept my dinner light to save room for this bad boy:

Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake

This cheesecake was so delicious. The whipped cream and red velvet cake parts were my favorite.

Every time we go to The Cheesecake Factory I always tell Ryan I want to pay to stick my head under the whipped cream machine. How delicious would that be!?

Opting Out of Gym Class

I read an article today in the Orlando Sentinel that was pretty disheartening. Apparently Florida legislature has added an opt-out clause to a previous physical education requirement that mandated students to have at least 150 minutes of exercise every week in school. The opt-out clause allows students to elect not to take gym class if a parent or guardian signs a waiver.

In a time where obesity is rising continually, how can this be an option? I understand some students cannot/should not take physical education due to various medical reasons, but when 15,000 Central Florida students elected to opt-out, something is not right. I don’t think 2.5 hours of exercise during school is a bad thing, especially when this is increasingly becoming the only exercise many students are getting every day. Just had to get that off my chest!

Did you like gym class?

I always liked gym class. I thought it was fun to learn new sports and have “play time” in the middle of the day.

Museum Memories

To me, the hardest part about leaving a job is leaving behind a group of people that were such a big part of your life, day in and day out, for quite a while.

My first job when I graduated college was working in the public relations and marketing department at the Orlando Museum of Art. I really enjoyed working with many of the people at the museum and we still make an effort to get together to catch up every so often.

What was your first “real” job?

The last time I saw a bunch of the museum folks was at my friend Ashley’s wedding in the beginning of January.

Today three of us met for lunch at Caffè Ritazza in downtown Orlando.

Caffe Ritazza

This is one of my favorite lunch places in Orlando. It’s very popular and always has the freshest ingredients and yummiest soups, salads and sandwiches.

Me + Ryan

Ryan + Tim

We all ordered salads full of veggies.

My Salad

My salad contained:

• Romaine lettuce
• Beets
• Carrots
• Mushrooms
• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Cucumber

After topping it with balsamic vinaigrette, I shook it up so everything was coated in the yummy dressing. Mmm!

We all enjoyed catching up over lunch and it was nice to hear that everyone is doing well! I hope to see the museum group again soon. 🙂

Interview

If you’re interested, head on over to VeeChats to see an interview Vee posted with me this morning. She asked some pretty neat questions and I really enjoyed answering them. Thanks for selecting me for this week’s interview, Vee!

Celebrating Six Years

Today is my six year anniversary with Ryan. I cannot believe we’ve been together for six years!

6 Years!

In honor of our six years of loooove, I figured I would share six facts about our relationship with you:

• We met at our university’s gym during my freshman year of college. (Our “how we met” story can be found here, if you’re interested. It’s the last question at the bottom of the page.)

UCF Gym

• Our first date was dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. The restaurant was more than 20 minutes away and I remember being so worried that we wouldn’t have enough to talk about on the way there and back… ha!

The Cheesecake Factory

• Our first kiss was on our second date at Ryan’s apartment. We watched a movie, ate mint chocolate chip ice cream out of the container and played mancala.

Mancala

• Ryan first told me he loved me four months after we first started dating. I went on a trip to Bermuda with my family and he said my absence made him realize how much he missed me and wanted me in his life. 🙂
• We’ve never broken up once during our six years of dating… Slow and steady wins the race. 😉
• Ryan proposed on Oct. 3, 2009, two days before his 26th birthday. He planned an elaborate scavenger hunt, that ended in a proposal. He arranged for our families to surprise me at dinner at one of our favorite restaurants afterward. It was perfect!

Anniversary Plans

In keeping with tradition, tonight Ryan and I are heading out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, the location of our first date. We’ve gone there every year since our first date.

Though the date is always wonderful, I have a bad track record with our anniversary dinner. Two of the last five times I’ve woken up in the middle of the night puking! Not fun. Now when we go there I try to order “safer” dishes since I’ve had two icky experiences that I can only attribute to my dinner.

If you’re in a relationship, what do you do to celebrate your anniversary?

I’m excited for a hot anniversary date with my fiancé!

Workout + Breakfast

Ryan and I hit the gym nice and early this morning. I went to BodyPump while he did his own he-man workout. 🙂 The new BodyPump release is growing on me a bit. I was a hater last week, but I think a couple days away from the class made me enjoy it more this morning.

After BodyPump, I did 25 minutes of cardio, divided between the elliptical and the treadmill.

Breakfast was a filling bowl of cocoa cupcake batter hot cereal.

Cupcake Cocoa Oats

My breakfast bowl contained:

• Chocolate cream Flax-Z-Snax hot cereal
• All the Whey cupcake batter protein powder
• Cocoa powder

I think I prefer total chocolate indulgence and like the chocolate peanut butter cup protein powder better in this mix than the cupcake batter, but it was still yummy and I ate it up quickly.

Monday's Breakfast

I enjoyed it with a hot mug of sugar cookie tea.

Hope your week is off to a good start!