Anniversary Trip
After a long and traffic-filled drive to Nashville, I arrive to a sweet assortment to celebrate our one year together!
I brought him a chocolate babka, baked specially for Easter since we couldn’t spend it together.
Anniversary Date Night!
We originally had a reservation at a restaurant called Adele’s. However, the second we parked the car we noticed it was a little more casual than we expected. We ended up getting a last-minute reservation at The Standard. It ended up being one of my favorite restaurants we’ve been to so far. They had a cocktail hour in a separate room, and we sat right next to a fireplace while we sipped on our fancy cocktails. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos of our dinner since we spent the entire time talking and enjoying our meals.
We ordered the charcuterie as our appetizer, which we found slightly lackluster, although the attempt to make it entirely locally sourced was commendable. We also got salads before our mains were ready, with Justin ordering a steak Oscar style with chimichurri sauce and me ordering the grilled rack of lamb served with creamed corn. I really enjoyed my rack of lamb it remains one of the few meals I would return to try again from any fine dining restaurant. Justin’s meal was also good, but much less special or memorable. We got a bottle of champagne to go with our meals and desserts, and we got a free dessert to celebrate our anniversary there.
We ended up staying at The Standard from open to close and sadly did not get offered access to the cigar lounge as we hoped. Maybe for our 2nd anniversary, we’ll get invited? After leaving The Standard, we decided to walk to Broadway and dance off some of the food we ate.
Brunch & Pottery Painting
As a part of my anniversary gift from Justin, he planned a date for us to go to The Factory in Franklin and paint pottery after brunch in downtown Franklin. We ended up finding a nice jewelry spot and talking over brunch for hours. We learned we aren’t the biggest pottery painting fans and found ourselves listening in on other people’s conversations during our painting sessions. Nonetheless, we ended up with a cute fruit bowl and an anniversary plate to commemorate the trip. We also got a nice bouquet to add to the room!
A few days prior Justin and I went out and got supplies for me to have a garden and a birdfeeder to watch in the mornings while he’s at class. You can see some of the daily visitors in the gallery below!
Tulip Festival
The next day we had another date planned, making this an anniversary week more than an anniversary day. We went to Eagleville for a tulip festival. They had plenty of animals to feed and pet, two aviaries, and a large field of tulips. By the time we got there, many of tulips had been picked already, but we managed to get a cute bundle of tulips to mark the third bouquet of the trip in less than a week of my being here - which is the new norm to my happy surprise.
Apr. 8th - 17th & Tyler Childers
The next day we celebrated Justin’s roommate’s birthday with some Chilean sea bass, green beans, and roasted potatoes. They turned out even better than I expected really. The next few days were marked by homemade spaghetti and meatballs, which were amazing (no surprise) and I took photos of the birdfeeder in the mornings for Justin to see. We did a little shopping at the mall to try and find me a graduation dress, but I didn’t leave with anything, unfortunately.
On the 18th we got tickets to a Tyler Childers concert to bookend the trip with. I had been wanting to go to a concert this year and Justin managed to fit it into this trip luckily. We enjoyed it and danced and sang along to nearly every song, only managing to get in trouble near the end of it - when they asked for us to move away from the walkways since we were taking up much of the space.
