Our 3rd Anniversary : )

Yesterday, Chip and I celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary. We are so thankful for the 1096 days we've been a married couple : ) Chip told me he had surprise dinner plans for us. He told me to dress up (as much as I could with my limited wardrobe being 7 months pregnant...) and that we needed to have Kenzie over to his parent's house and be leaving by 6:30 at the latest.

We got to his parent's house at 6 with plenty of time to spare, so we had them take a few pictures.


Our little family after 3 years : )

So, we left and drove to the downtown area. I figured out where we were going before we got there.....mainly because as we were getting off the freeway Chip kept looking UP. He was taking me to the Compass Room at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Phoenix. It is Arizona's only revolving restaurant. And VERY nice : ) I didn't take the second picture....I found it online....but I took all the other ones you'll see : )




The Compass Room is located on the 24th floor. We got in the elevator and I BARELY had time to pull out my camera and capture the view as we FLEW up to the restaurant. The elevator was SO fast and amazing. We ended up riding it up and down twice after dinner : )


We we seated at our beautiful table:


Here was the view when we were first seated. Luckily, even if the sun is bright, you're always moving to a new place, so you don't have it in your eyes the whole time!

Here was another one, just from another angle.

We were able to see so much from up there. Here are a few big landmarks I thought were fun to see from up high:


Since it is the "compass" room, every so often on the wall they have plaques that tell what angle/degree your facing and some landmark that is a certain distance away. It takes 55 minutes to complete a full 360.

Here is Chip as the sun was setting:

And me : )


We had a SPECTACULAR evening and I would recommend the restaurant to ANYONE! It is quite pricey, but the service, food, and atmosphere were everything you would expect and MORE for the prices we paid!

Our waitress was WONDERFUL! She was so REAL and PERSONABLE! She didn't press us to get more than we wanted, she was very encouraging about our menu selections...not in an annoying way, but in a very sincere way. She was there whenever we needed her, but not so much that we felt like she was ever interrupting. I REALLY liked her : ) It was funny, because she couldn't believe we'd been married for 3 years since we looked so young. Chip said "yeah, people think I'm 21 all the time" Her response was a little laugh and "I was thinking more like 18."

The food was SOOOO good. I am always nervous at places where the food is "gourmet" or "exquisite and unique" etc. But I shouldn't have been worried here : ) There menu is designed to have 3 courses: appetizers, soup & salads, and the entree. We decided to split one of each course and still have room for dessert. We're really glad we did.

The meal started out with their cornbread. It was sweet but also had a slight green chili taste. It was served with normal butter, honey butter, and salt. I have never seen salt for your dinner presented that way!


The appetizer we chose was Baked St. Andre and Herbs (served with) Sourdough baguette, kiwi leather, and spiced cashews

Mmmm....It was great! One funny thing is that when we ordered it, we didn't even realize that St.Andre is a type of cheese. It's a good thing we liked it! The kiwi leather was like a YUMMY fruit roll up and there were SEVERAL fun fruit garnishes to try. We especially liked the kumquats, which neither of us had ever had before. We had to ask the waitress what it was and when we told her we really liked it, she surprised us with a little "present" of two more : ) She also offered to bring out extra sourdough baguette to go with the cheese, which we gladly accepted!


Our next course was our salad. We got the Baby Romaine Salad with garlic vinaigrette, reggiano, chile-lime croutons, and heirloom cherry tomatoes. Its a good thing we LOVE garlic, because it was very garlicy. But it was SO yummy!!!


For our main course, we went all out and ordered the Filet Mignon with sunchoke-potato puree, english peas, and pearl onions. We also ordered a side of grilled asparagus. We found out that "sunchoke" is the root of a sunflower! They puree it and basically mix it with mashed potatoes. We ordered the filet medium well and it was perfect! I LOVED every bite of the meal!!!

I was SO set on taking pictures of EACH food item before we started eating.....but the main course came and I must have been SUPER excited about it, because I dug right in and didn't think to take the picture until halfway through : ) OOPS!

Chip really liked the walk-way connecting these two buildings...so I took a picture : )


And here was a fun sunset picture.


For dessert, we got the Custard Trio. It came with Crem Brulee, Chocolate Mousse, and Tangerine Flan....all of which were very good and quite interesting! They put a fun chocolate anniversary message on the plate for us too : )



The whole night was WONDERFUL! We talked about all the things that have gone on in our life together the past three years and thanked the Lord for the ways we've seen Him work and for all the many blessings He has poured out on us.

So....thank you Chip, for planning such a fun dinner for us.
But even more so....THANK YOU LORD, for three wonderful years and for the extra blessing you have poured upon us at this point in our lives, making a dinner like this possible! We know a dinner like this is FAR beyond a "need" of ours and DEFINITELY a huge "extra" in life. And we are so extremely grateful that God has allowed us to enjoy the beauty and creativity He created in an evening like last night : )