A NOLA Anniversary - Part 3

Sunday, our first anniversary! We had officially been married for over a year, and it felt awesome! Our day started out driving to the Northshore to go to church at Church of the King in Mandeville, the town I grew up in. We had heard some great things about this church and really enjoyed the service a lot. It was great to start our second year of marriage worshiping our God together.

Then the next hour or so was dedicated to showing Shaun the life I lived before we met in Colorado. I showed him my old high school and my old house, the house I had always dreamed of living in someday, and the highway ditch where I once fit a whole Ford Mustang, complete with my driving instructor. (Don't worry, Shaun was driving...)

After the brief tour, we stopped for lunch at one of my favorite places -- La Madeleine. It's a chain like a Panera Bread, but it's all French themed with quiches, sandwiches, French onion soup, and strawberries Romanoff. After our sunny patio lunch, we were ready to head back to the Quarter.

After heading back, we decided to take it easy and spend some time at Pat O'Briens, arguably the most famous bar in the French Quarter. It's well known for it's "dueling" pianos, two pianists are up at the bar and take turns playing songs requested by the patrons. It also has hundreds of beer steins hanging from the ceiling. We ordered the typical, two hurricanes in the souvenir glasses, and kicked back for the next hour and a half.

The picture above shows the dueling pianos and the beer steins. This video below is a clip we took during the song "Sweet Caroline," which apparently is the number one requested song at Pat O'Briens.



After Pat's, we went back to shower and change for our anniversary dinner. Yet again, Shaun earned some serious brownie points by surprising me with dinner reservations at Arnaud's for the big night. It was right off Bourbon and Bienville, which made for an interesting walk in our finery! The cute Canadians I mentioned from Friday night at Acme had actually raved about their dinner they had had at Arnaud's the night before, though I had no clue we'd be going there! It definitely lived up to its hype. We had such a great meal!

My handsome husband and I at our table.

Shaun's plate had a sampling of wild mushroom veal, crab cakes, and a crawfish rice dish. I ordered duck with a blueberry and port wine sauce. And we ordered pomme souffles (puffed up potatoes) and smothered okra for the sides. Everything was very tasty!!

Our runner was so great! She was really fun and a great sport when Shaun launched his water all over the table. (Apparently that is now our anniversary tradition... Shaun spilling his drink. At least this time it was not a smoothie, nor was it on me, haha!) Here she is making us our dessert at our table. Bananas Foster, yum! Everyone in the restaurant turned to watch as she flambeed the bananas, and then once our dessert was in its proper places (our tummys of course!), Shaun and I noticed a sudden influx of runners flambeing bananas at other various tables. We are quite the trend setters! :)

When Shaun made our reservation, he had mentioned that it was our first anniversary, so Arnaud's had a big, red heart balloon tied to the back of my chair, signifying to everyone in the restaurant that we were a big deal. :)

If our first year of marriage is any indication of what the rest of our life together will be like, I say bring on the next 80 years!