Do You Know What the French Word for "Birthday" Is?

...In case you were wondering, the answer to that question is anniversaire. Which brings me to the subject of this post...and an explanation of the title. (Which is much less interesting than you'd think) Basically, the Husband and I had a playful mock argument about whether we should wait until the day of our anniversary to open the cards that were sent to us, or if - like Christmas cards - they should be opened before the celebration in question to make the most of them. The question in the title was Seb's argument for waiting to open the cars. My Christmas argument won the day, though.

On the day in question, I was greeted, upon waking, with breakfast in bed and a lovely vase of flowers. I gave the Husband his card and after a bit of time together, he was off to work. Alas, being in the middle of the week, we couldn't take off on a trip like we did last year when we went to Blenheim Palace.

Once the evening came, we got dressed up and embarked upon the plan we'd finalised the night before: dinner out at a lovely local restaurant called Paprika. Of course, since we were so last-minute with our plans this year, we didn't figure out what we wanted to do in time to snag a babysitter for Ethan. Though, to be honest, he's only ever been watched by Seb's parents if both of us were out, so it would be quite a big step anyway. And in the end, he was really well-behaved for our night out. Sure, he wiped his mouth on the tablecloth a bit, but 1) he's 8 months old, and 2) I've seen grown people make more mess at a meal than my son did. I think that's a fair standard to hold to.

There's my handsome boys!

When we got there, the restaurant was practically empty. While that might not always be a desirable circumstance, last night it was brilliant because I didn't feel bad about bringing my 8-month-old child to a nice restaurant and disturbing other people's dinners. Plus, the waitstaff absolutely loved him. My boy's quite the charmer, I'll have you know.

The chutney selection. Ooh, yeah.

Our scrummy spread. Left to right: garlic naan, cranberry juice, popadoms, lamb korma, chicken jalfrezzi, cheesy naan, diet Coke, and plain rice.

Oh yeah, did I mention that this was an Indian restaurant? We do love our Indian food in this family. I can't believe we never found this place sooner: it's back in our old neighbourhood on the south side of town. I give full credit for this lovely night to my lovely husband, who scoured the deepest bowels of a few travel websites to find the best restaurants here in Farnborough. It's funny how often we insist that there isn't anything around here, when in fact it's all just hiding in plain sight. When we honestly thought about it, we realised there were a ton of restaurants within a very reasonable distance of our house. Good things come to those who pay attention, I guess.

Two years on: our happy family (minus a bolero thanks to some baby face wiping.)

Daddy and son. My two favourite men in the world.

We're pretty hilarious together.

And the best way to cap off a lovely evening out with your two gorgeous boys? Sitting on the couch in pyjamas eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream straight from the container. We are made of awesome.

Two years into this whole marriage thing, I'm really enjoying it. I have a wonderful husband. I can still remember hearing him speak for the first time one Sunday in church: I was bent over in the pew, fishing my pen from off the floor when I heard his voice from over the pulpit. My first thought? Ooh, he sounds hot! To my everlasting satisfaction, when I straightened myself up I discovered that Seb was in fact the mouth-watering hunk of man candy I'd hoped he was. (Oh yeah, that'll embarrass him.) Straight away I was smitten, and over the next months I went from pathetically desperate attempts to spend time with him, to watching each other walk away at the end of an evening, to walking back to my house together every night we could. And now, about four years on, we have a beautiful baby boy and an amazing marriage. Who'd have thunk it? I tell you: that semester abroad back in my junior year of college is the best decision I ever made.