Happy Anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. Wunderlide

What a wonderful weekend! We stayed at the Hotel Phillips, a beautiful hotel in Kansas City, where we were surprised with chocolate covered strawberries in our room with a card addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Wunderlide. The strawberries were great, the room was lovely, but Wunderlide is not our last name. Close. But not right. (Last year, our honeymoon suite offered a bottle of champagne and a note for the Weatherfords, which is again, not us. We’ve got a tough last name, it happens a lot.)

LT Fromage planned so many fun things for us to do; we started with Mediterranean food on Friday night and saved room for Kadayif, a dee-lish cheese/pastry dessert. We had a yummy breakfast at the hotel on Saturday and then went to the City Market, a 145-stall farmer’s market to check out all the treasures: fresh produce, spices, breads, jewelry and other trinkets. We shared a big bag of kettle corn and freshly squeezed lemon and limeades and went home with a cow bobble head and a bag of Spicy Thai dried pasta (I can’t wait to make it with peanut sauce!).

We had planned on eating Indian food for lunch, but nixed it to try Grinder’s. The valet recommended it to us and when he mentioned it was featured on Food Network’s Diners, Drive-in’s and Dives we decided we had to check it out! LT Fromage got the Bengal, one of their featured pizzas, which is a Northwest India inspired pie covered in tandori chicken and crab. I ordered the Fun Gi instead. After removing everything that had once been alive, I did take a bite of his, since it was the one Guy ate, and it was so yummy! As if the dining experience wasn’t cool enough, there was a garage door across the street painted like a cow, where I insisted we pose for a picture. (I wish we could upload pictures, but right now our laptop is dead and on its way back to the store to be repaired. I've got my camera phone and lifted images from google in the meantime!)

Of course, it rained on Saturday afternoon, and not just a little, it poured. It was reminiscent of our honeymoon where we battled rain all but one night. The weather didn’t stop us from strolling (under the cover of eves) and stopping into shops to look around downtown.

Saturday night we had intended to see “Going the Distance” but couldn’t find a theater showing it, sadness, so we just chilled out for a while before going to the WaterFire show on the river where they lit big fire pits all down the river. There was music, fire dancers, food, drinking and some other cool stuff. Sadly, the rain caused a late start and early finish, but we had a great time anyway.

For dinner LT Fromage had picked a tapas bar, Extra Virgin. Neither of us had ever been to a tapas bar before and it was a great first time! We enjoyed caprese salad, and tried the chick pea fries which were so yummy. I picked the Garrotxa “Cati” cheese that was recommend by the waiter, LT Fromage was daring and ordered Fried Duck Gizzards. I kid you not. Ew. He said he liked them, however. We were so full after we shared a baked pasta fromaggi and a bottle of Riesling.

On Sunday we had Ethiopian food for lunch and some of the best hot spiced tea ever. We bought 2 miniature beer steins at the River Market Antique Mall, which is 4 stories and full of the coolest goodies, including the dinner set I grew up using, the one my parents registered for at their wedding almost 30 years ago! Does that qaulify as antique? I'm not sure. It was fun to see, though!

LT Fromage found a perfect card that made me cry and then laugh at a reference to our “terrible” first year of marriage; he bought me a gorgeous diamond and sapphire journey pendant necklace. He was thrilled with the 17-inch tall beer stein I found for him. We braced ourselves for some wicked freezer burn and cut into the top of our wedding cake. It was surprisingly not that terrible (just like our first year of marriage!).

(Aren't you digging the black and white floor tiles and the cow spots on my fridge? I love my kitchen!)

I hope you all had equally wonderful weekends!