Nom-a-versary

On our anniversary, we woke up super early (thanks to the Pacific time change and daylight savings time) and exchanged our paper presents. You already saw what Hubs got and he went all out, making me a sweet little desktop calendar all decked out in wedding colors as well as a super fancy purple pen with ink cartridges and interchangeable nibs and everything!

After a quick breakfast, we picked up our rental car and headed out of town, across the Golden Gate to Santa Rosa, about an hour and a half away. We were in town for one reason: a beer pilgrimage to Russian River Brewery, which has some of the best rated beers in the country. 

We both started with Pliney the Elder Double IPAs and ordered some pizza and a sample tray.

The pizza was good, but the beer was amazing! Some brews were a little much for us (they brew a few sour beers using wine yeast, which I guess you need to develop a taste for), but it was a great way to celebrate.

We also decided to start a little tradition of taking anniversary photos showing how many years we've been at this married gig. Here I am demonstrating year one:

After lunch, we finished the drive to Napa and arrived right before sunset.

Having paid homage to our simple-folk tastes with pizza and beer, we decided to get over the top classy for dinner by scoring a late reservation at Ad Hoc, owned by Thomas Keller, who also runs the French Laundry (where dinner is $250 a head and wine is probably just as much! Not for the cheap-at-heart).

Ad Hoc has a different menu each night based on what's fresh and available. Because it was a superfancyfuntime, we also got the wine pairings. It was delicious, simple food (we had a smoked salmon salad, marrow, short ribs, a cheese course and the best apple crisp ever created) and the service was informative and attentive without being all uptight.

Best wedding anniversary we've ever had.