Sunday, January 23, 2011

First Anniversary

On January 21st, Paul and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary (on March 25th we will have been together five years - carazay!). Our gift to ourselves this year was to really just enjoy each other's company to the best of our ability as during this first year we have really only been physically together for one month. The other eleven months have been full of trials and obstacles courtesy of the US government/immigration, and even though I like to grumble about them a lot, I truly am thankful that they allowed us to be together in the end.

On Friday Paul and I packed our overnight bag and headed to Spokane to spend a night in the city's most prestigious hotel: The Davenport. While it sounds like it was named after a sofa, it was really established by a guy named Louis Davenport and was built in 1914. Even back then it was famous as it had air conditioning and hot water in every room, something that is taken for granted today but was unheard of in the early part of the 20th century (source).

As I am apparently not yet a TRUE blogger, I forgot that my camera was in my bag during our stay and didn't take any pictures, but these are courtesy of the hotels website:


The picture above is basically what our room looked like. We didn't have all the foliage, but we did have the fun safari themed decor, which was evident throughout the whole building. When one thinks of safari and animal print, the image can sometimes be cheesy and overdone, but it was tasteful throughout the entire hotel. (We stayed in the Davenport Tower, which is the newest part of the hotel and is a separate building from the historical original.)


For dinner we dined at The Palm Court Grill, which is probably The Davenport's most fancy restaurant. With the package we booked, we received a $100 dining credit and we ended up spending $101.03. The restaurant really tried to make our anniversary feel special by putting fresh rose petals on the table and giving us free dessert! The food was pretty amazing.

After dinner we walked a couple of blocks to a place recommended to me by my boss: Catacombs Pub. We were told that this place had the coolest atmosphere, and it did! In the basement of a hotel, the pub has stone and brick walls, fire places, ancient looking tapestries, and medieval looking light fixtures.


We just had wine and chocolate cake, but it was fun. We also saw that the hotel that the Catacombs Pub is in has a February special for valentines day but can be used any time during the month. We are definitely thinking of taking advantage of this!

The other dining experience we had was the next morning at breakfast. We were originally going to have Starbucks coffee and pastries but then looked at the brunch menu for The Safari Room, which is the Tower's restaurant. It was a little more casual but still had amazing food. We definitely had an indulgent weekend food and drink wise, but that made it a little more special than just another usual date night.

Saturday celebrating continued with Indian food for lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant in Spokane, and then we came home and did Paul's favorite weekend (or anytime) activity: NAP. We might have been in a food coma, but it's hard to tell.

I realized that I forgot my phone at Taaj so we had to drive BACK to Spokane Saturday evening and stopped at a Buffalo Wild Wings type joint called Flaming Joes to have apps and play trivia. It was a far cry from the classy and attentive restaurants we had been at in the hotel, but we still enjoyed each other's company which is the most important thing. I love that we can have fun together in high class restaurants and in loud and casual eateries.

After this weekend we decided that instead of getting each other anniversary gifts each year we want to continue the tradition of spending quality time together. Celebrating our marriage this way seems way cooler than stressing over anniversary gifts anyway.

London, England, 2008

The Lake District, England, Summer 2008

Christmas, Darlington, England, 2007

New Years, Darlington, England, 2007

Christmas, Coeur d'Alene, ID, USA, 2010

3 comments:

  1. Awwww thanks for sharing! What a fantastic anniversary weekend! You guys know how to do it in style :)

    I like that you decided to focus on giving each other your time for your anniversary, instead of having the stress of buying gifts. Sometimes the gift of your undivided attention is the best give you can give someone.

    So happy for you guys!

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  2. Congratulations on your year anniversary! The hotel looks amazing! I like all the pictures you included from your previous anniversaries.

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  3. Happy Anniversary! So happy for you two!

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