It’s been a year, can you believe it?  Wow.  It feels like only a few months ago we were shaking our groove things at the beach.  To celebrate this year we went back to Charleston, which is where the cruise ship left from on our honeymoon.  Last year we spent the night in a dinky motel in the smelly part, about 5 or 10 miles from the good part.  This year we stepped it up and stayed at the LaQuinta right across the bridge from the good historic part.  Not so smelly, and we were right in front of a dock with lots of fancy boats, Lori was thrilled!

On the first day we walked around and did mostly window shopping. Lori found a dress she absolutely loved, but they didn’t have the right size, then miraculously on Monday we found another store that did have the size!  Something to note about Historic Charleston if you’ve never been is that it’s like that long street in Savannah (not River Street) where all the shops are, but times four.  And it’s a giant maze.  We walked so much and saw so many shops we thought we’d seen it all, but the second day we parked in a different lot and realized there was another section of stores we completely missed.

Saturday we decided to give gifts to each other, so we could enjoy the presents all weekend.  Lori got a Peacock Feather head band, and Daniel got a veggie T-shirt.  There is a long market there with artists and jewelry and purses and basket weavers and more jewelry, where Lori found her new favorite purse.  Adam gave us a Starbucks gift card that had nothing left on it so we bought coffee to try and keep us going.  We were going to eat at a veggie restaurant outside the Historic part but realized we’d have to leave and come back and park again so we stayed and had bar food.  That night we had Japanese Steak House, which is what we usually do for special ocassions because it’s so awesome.  No one there believed we were old enough to be married.

Sunday we went to see a giant old tree, but the tree was closed until later.  So we went back into the city and ate at Yo Burrito.  It was ok, salsa was good but they were out of tofu.  How do you run out of tofu?  Then it was off to the museum where they were having a special wedding exibit.  Anyways, for dinner we went to Mercato, an Italian restaurant, for our actual anniversary dinner.  Oddly enough, there were two other couples seated in opposite corners from us that were celebrating the exact same thing.  One of the couples brought their cake top with them and ended up throwing almost all of it away because it tasted like cardboard.  Our cake on the other hand was just as great as a year ago.  We couldn’t help ourselves and opened it the night we got to the hotel and nibbled on it the whole trip.

The day we left we went to a corn maze that wasn’t made of corn (bushes).  They said if we found 6 of the 10 hole punches for our punch cards we would get a small prize.  We found 9 of the 10, but would have had all of them it someone hadn’t stolen one of the punches from the pole.  When we went to collect our prize there wasn’t anybody there.  The lady that told us we’d get a prize was driving away when we got out of the maze, a full hour before they were supposed to close.  They left us in there alone, in a maze, possibly dead or dying or injured or making out.  Good thing we gots the smarts and could find our way out of what they say is one of the worlds largest mazes.

It was my birthday on Thursday and Lori took me out after work.  It was awesome!  We went to Cafe Sunflower, a vegetarian restaurant in Buckhead.  The food was delicious and the atmosphere is better than you’d expect for a place in a strip mall kind of setting.  Lori had the veggie loaf [picture left] and I had the almond crusted tofu [picture right].

From there we went to Startime Entertainment for some video games and comedy at the Funny Farm.  The comedy was a bit more miss than hit, but it was fun just being out.  Oh yeah, and because it was my birthday I didn’t have to do an after hours phone switch for work, and got my boss to do it for me.

This is a picture of us chasing down an imaginary plane that’s trying to take off without us.

Last night we ended ’08 in a garage full of friends in masks, and we started ’09 with sore legs and aching heads.  There was lots of loud music and dancing and laughing about how we can’t dance or hear each other.  We took Adam with us, he out danced us big time.  At one point he had people chanting his name while he was booty dancing with Catherine, “Go new guy, go new guy”.

Lori’s new year’s resolutions are to cook better and to get paid for her photography.  Daniel’s new year’s resolution is to not worry about money.  So if anyone needs some, or knows someone who needs some really awesome pictures taken, you should let Lori take them.  That would help us both with our resolutions.

To everyone, Happy New Year!

We put up our tree last week, but have been procrastinating about posting a picture.  Why, though, it’s so awesome!  This is the same tree we had last year, but this time we put it on a box to add some height since it’s short like us.  On top is MC Hammer, keeping the tree legit.  (Here’s another picture)

And . . . we ordered Christmas postcards to send out to everyone we can think of.  It’s our first mass mailing as a family!  Very exciting stuff.  We’re putting addresses on them this week, and can hopefully get them to the post office by Friday.  Expect to see our cheesy faces sometime next week.