Happy Anniversary

Honeymoon

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. We celebrated on Saturday by having some friends in the ward take our kids for the day. We decided to spend the day in Salt Lake City shopping at vintage and consignment stores (my favorite thing to do - thanks Nate!) We started at the Deseret Industries in SugarHouse, thinking there would be lots of things donated by the people who lived in those neat old houses in that area. We were way wrong. A garage sale in South Phoenix would have had a better selection! We browsed through a few more shops in the area before we got hungry for lunch. We ate at the Blue Plate Diner, which was featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives recently. As we were waiting for our table, Nathan leaned over to me and said, "I love places like this." I knew what he meant. The century-old diner was packed (probably most of them locals and loyal customers). Memorabilia covered the walls and we could tell that the employees actually enjoyed working in the busy diner on a Saturday afternoon. We left the diner stuffed and ready to do some more shopping. The funnest thing about looking through vintage shops is getting glimpses of all of the dishes, Tupperware, lamps and kitchen chairs that we saw in our mother's and grandmother's cupboards, kitchens and living rooms when we were growing up. There aren't as many vintage shops in Salt Lake (especially modern vintage like I prefer) as there is in Phoenix, but there were enough to keep us busy for an afternoon. We even happened across the strangest furniture store we've ever seen. It was a huge warehouse stuffed to the rafters with old and dusty chairs, desks, piano benches, dressers, end tables.....anything made out of wood. Almost everything was broken and piled on top of each other so that we couldn't even tell what anything was. The only words Nathan and I could find to describe the place was a furniture graveyard. It felt eerie and haunted, so we couldn't get out of there fast enough - but not before we got the whole story from the only human we could find in the building. Apparently, every piece of wood in that warehouse had been collecting dust for the last 50 years in Liverpool, England until it was brought across the ocean to Salt Lake City. I don't know what they're going to do with all of it...probably not sell it! After all of our shopping, we stopped at a chocolate shop for a treat, saved the Russians* and then took a drive through the Avenues to see all of the old cool houses. I saw quite a few homes built in the 1960's that I would kill to live in. We finished the evening at Rodizio Brazilian Grill for grilled meats and pineapple and the best lemonade on the planet. It was the best day ever and I'm glad Nathan and I got to spend it together. Love you Nathan!








* We ran into some Russian women who were having some car trouble. They were late for something, so Nathan gave them a ride while I waited in a cafe' (there wasn't room for me in the car). They were so grateful that they gave him some Russian chocolate. Sweet!