Kevin and I celebrated our 17th anniversary on 7-11. Going out to a restaurant these days causes me more stress than it’s worth, so instead we stayed in and told the boys to cook us something fancy.
Who knew Kraft mac ‘n cheese comes in spiral shapes?
They stuck shrimps onto cups for us:
They stuffed figs with Roquefort and wrapped them in prosciutto, even though they didn’t know what figs, Roquefort, or prosciutto were:
And V made this lavender honey tart.
Everything about the tart is a mistake, from the Oops, I forgot to start the creme fraiche yesterday to the next afternoon when I turned the oven on and we got smoked out of the house, as half the honey from the tart had leaked onto the bottom of the oven and no one thought to say anything about it. Despite all that, it tasted incredible and the fact that Vincenzo picked lavender from our garden and dried it in the oven made up for the fact that we had to settle for store-bought creme fraiche.
I asked the waitstaff to dress up. Leo misinterpreted (it was an honest mistake).
Leo acted as photographer. Not bad!
Fun fact: that’s the dress I wore to our rehearsal dinner!
The boys gave us gifts all day, like this Lego thing that floats so I can eat ice cream on while in the tub:
I call it an ice cream float. For some reason that makes Leo really mad, so don’t tell him I posted it here.
Kevin also had the boys create Willows Lodge, the place of our wedding, in Minecraft. They made me character, dressed me up in a suit of white armor, and let me explore the grounds. It was crazy how accurate they had gotten the place, from the herb garden to the pig sty (yes, there was a pig sty with pigs in it at our wedding). I don’t remember there being quite so many wolves or chickens present, or a swimming pool with a high dive, but otherwise they got it spot-on. My white-armor-clad self went up to the balcony and threw a bouquet to the guests that Rocco spawned when I said, “Nobody came!” then Minecraft Me relaxed in the pool while the boys set off fireworks and tried to light the chickens on fire. It’s probably a good thing they weren’t at our actual wedding.
Having my boys get excited as I explored their re-creation of a place that is so special to me—it got me right in the feels. I can’t even explain.
The next day, we took the boys to Willows Lodge to see it IRL, and it was was my turn to watch them turn in circles, seeing what they got right and what was a little off and saying hi to the actual pigs.
Sometimes I still have to pinch myself that this is where we got married.
We kept bumping into a newlywed couple with their wedding date printed on their shirts: 7-11-20, and there we were, the same as them only with three boys, one of whom is taller than the bride of 17 years ago, and I thought again how time is something I will never really understand. Standing there with my boys and my husband felt like living in two timelines at once.
Leo, sitting inside the stone house that’s in the background of the picture below.
The boys standing in the same hollowed out tree as we are in below.
Our 17th anniversary was another one of those happy-but-different experiences brought to us by CoVid. It’s already a memory I cherish, even though it’s only 2 days old.
17 years and 2 days old
That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do.
WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Butternut squash lasagna
Plain pasta for lame-o’s who don’t like butternut squash lasagna
Salad
Hand-cranked strawberry ice cream!!!
Fun sweet memories of today and 17 years ago….so grateful for you, Kevin, and the amazing grandsons.
What a wonderful life you two created together ❤️.
Stop it!!! This post could not be sweeter. Kudos to you raising such thoughtful boys to make your anniversary so special