Jeremy…is…back.

And writing stuff.

So we’ve had a VERY productive weekend, and I have the privilege of sharing it with you. As many of you know, today is our anniversary! Two years ago today, Angela and I said the words we longed to say since only a few months after our first date: “I do.” So before I say anything else, let me say this: Angela…I still do. And I do with more wild abandon than even you may know or understand. I do, with the inexplicable passion and love that exploded into being in those first days and weeks, now tempered and molded by our experiences into the solid, more reliable, and ever-present love I have for you today. May it be so many times over in our coming years together.

This year, that milestone was coupled with a minor miracle, that may not seem as such to some of you, but certainly was to us. But let’s start at the beginning of the weekend, with our trip to the Rosewood Country Inn!

The inn was beautiful. Just unbelievable. Cozy, inviting, luxurious in a country-ish sort of way. We arrived at 6:30pm or so on Friday, dropped off our things in the Moondancer Suite, drooled over most of the room, and headed to Bellissima, a brick-oven restaurant for dinner. It was a little loud there, but the food was GOOD and the prices were more reasonable than the extravagent dinner we had originally planned. And we got a seat by the fire. We had an all-out dinner, then headed back to the inn for the night…

In the morning, Angela got up to use the bathroom. Now, we had noticed that the toilet did not seem to be flushing correctly the night before, but wrote it off as old plumbing. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what happened at 6:30am. While Angela kept the tank from continuously allowing water to flow into the overflowing bowl, I went downstairs to find help. A lady gave me a few towels and a plunger, as well as the feeling that she thought it was OUR fault. I went back upstairs, and we did what we could with the towels (there was water ALL over the floor) and I had to go back for more. The lady sent me up a second time, again making me feel like it was my fault, and told me the cleaning people would clean it up after we left. Of course, we had to use the bathroom before we left, so that was no good. So I went down a third time, went straight to the cleaning closet, borrowed a sponge and some cleaning stuff, and at 7am in the morning, in an expensive B&B suite, I was on my hands a knees scrubbing the bathroom floor.
The rest of the stay was great. We had a BEAUTIFUL candlelit breakfast of cranberry nut muffins, lemon-poached pear with raspberry sauce, a belgian waffle with bananas and a walnut praline sauce, hot chocolate and some juice. Really, it was fantastic. Then we went back up and sat on front of the fire until checkout time.

I paid full price for the room, with not so much as an apology for the inconvenience of having to take care of someone else’s plumbing problem on my anniversary weekend. It turned out to be a misunderstanding, which was addressed more than adequately when we e-mailed the inn after we got home.  The Rosewood Inn gets two thumbs up!  And we hope to return in the summer, to see what the grounds look like when they’re green and alive.
We then took off for the Chocolate Fest, where we tried 12 different chocolate treats, all of which were stellar. My favorite was the drinkable dessert chocolate; it was the perfect mix of sweet and bitter. Lots of pure chocolate flavor. Angela liked the one from the New London Inn, who was hosting the event; it consisted of a brownie with a smooth chocolate mousse on top, with another something on top of that. Yep. That had to have been one of the tastiest events we’ve ever been to.

Then we headed down to Jenny Rainville’s apartment for a pseudo-St. Patrick’s day. It was a really good time; we had cheesy vegetable soup, soda bread, snacks arranged into the shape and colors of the flag of Ireland. We visited with Jenny’s parents, then settled in to watch a childhood movie for many of us: Darby O’Gill and the Little People! It was a neat blast from the past. We were back home by 10pm, and another day was done.

Sunday is where the miracle comes in. Angela blogged a couple weeks ago about us having met a non-criminal looking dude at the Enterprise we rented a car from when Angela’s car died. Well, Sunday we invited them over to sample Angela’s second rendition of Justin’s groom’s cake. Their names are John and Laurel, and they arrived at about 3pm. We spent the next six hours with them, giving them the “grand” tour of the house, eating cake, getting the tour of their house, chatting, and then having dinner at John’s parents’ house a few minutes away. From the moment they walked in, it was as if we had known each other for years, probably due to the fact that we were both starved for neighbors that are young, don’t have children, and aren’t about to walk off with our rear tires. So, miracle it was, and we’re very glad to have met them.

Today we’ve been gathing pictures from across the years we’ve been together, and we’re having prints made to put in our 5-year memory box. It’s been fun to look back at some of the things we’ve done together, and now we’ll be headed out to look at more furniture and dream of the things we’ll do in the future. Aren’t anniversaries great?