5th anniversary celebration

Time sure flies when you're having fun!  I can't believe that we just celebrated our 5th anniversary! 

I feel like just yesterday we celebrated our 4th, and to that point, just got married! 

In past years, our tradition has been to take a vacation day on our anniversary.  This year, we lucked out and it was on a Saturday.  M surprised me with an overnight stay downtown DC at the Madarin Oriental...

View of the Washington Monument from our room

...and dinner at the famous DC restaurant, CityZen!  We opted for the 6 course set menu, and it was delicious.  The staff and service was unmatched.  They knew it was our anniversary and spoiled us from the minute we walked in the door.

I'm going to try to remember each dish...bear with me.  We started with a surprise from the Chef, a roasted quail leg.  We also each had a glass of rose prosecco.

The sommelier was fantastic and suggested a delicious bottle of Burgundy.  Then began the tasting menu - first was a veal carpaccio with mini crab cake and béarnaise sauce.  

Next was a savory lobster french toast - this was our favorite.

This was a sea trout and very different than we expected - it was delicious.

Fourth was a rabbit roulette which was incredibly rich - we both could have finished with this.

The least favorite of the dinner was the lamb, which was disappointing.  I love lamb, but this one just didn't do it for us.  But the bread they served with it however melted in your mouth.

Then we had a small sorbet as a palette cleanser...

before dessert.  The corn cake was strange, but the rhubarb cream thing on top was very good. 

They also surprised us with a sparkling muscato and extra dessert, which was delicious.

They also gave us coffee cake and coffee 'to continue the celebration the next morning.'  It was a lovely touch. 

With my bad luck in seeing the chefs, I was surprised when James Beard Award Winner Eric Ziebold was in the kitchen!  He's on the right in the blue apron.  This was taken from our table, right at the kitchen!

The dinner was good, but incredibly expensive.  While it was delicious and certainly memorable, it will be a long, long time before we return...

The next morning, we hopped up early slept in until 10am!  When I woke up and looked across the room, I saw 4 black wooden letters, L O V E.  Wood is the traditional 5th anniversary gift, and how creative was M!  They're now on our bookcase in the living room.  He also gave me beautiful David Yurman earrings.  It's a bit of a tradition for him to give me a piece of Yurman, my favorite, each year.  Keeping with the wood theme, I gave him a big, fancy, official wine rack for the basement.  He's so excited to be able to organize the wine that's currently laying all around the floor!

After exchanging gifts, we laced up our sneakers and headed out to enjoy the beautiful morning and walk around the monuments.  

After brunch, we headed back out west and stopped at Lost Rhino brewery in Ashburn.  We have been meaning to go for months, and thought what better day than this to visit!  They've got quite the set up there with a nice bar, a few food options and tours of the brewery.  They're open Wednesday-Saturday with tours all day Saturday.  My favorites were the Blond and the Brown, and husband enjoyed the IPAs.  For $5 each, you get the tour and tastings - great deal! 

After a super fancy dinner of Chipotle in the car, we headed to Nissan Pavilion, er, Jiffy Lube Live for the Dave Matthews Band concert! 

We had pit tickets, which we love to get when we're seeing Dave.  When we saw him play at Nats Park in 2010, we ended up about 3 rows of people from the stage, and it was awesome!  

We weren't quite that close this time, but still had a fantastic time.  He's one of my favorites, and I love seeing him live. 

We had an absolutely great time celebrating our 5th anniversary!  Five down, so many more to go :)

I love you MB!