This collection is meant to be an online baby book for you. See I know my skills for getting photographs into photo albums are lacking. And by lacking I mean I have around 750 photos from my college semester abroad, an wide array of scrap booking materials from fancy scissors to stamps, and about 4 unfinished scrapbooks just waiting for memories of that time to come together in an orderly fashion. Ten years later the photos are still in the envelopes they were shipped to me, the craft glue and ink stamp pads have long dried, and the plastic covering remains protecting the albums. I rest my case.
Since you will find there are not a ton of photos or memory books of your father and I around the house I thought it nice to pepper in some stories of our lives together before you came into the picture. Last night your dad and I were downtown for an event and on the ride home I saw a romantically lit horse drawn carriage taking in the beautiful sites our city has to offer. It immediately took me back in time to our first or second anniversary together as a couple. I had been nagging your dad to take me on a carriage ride around the city for quite some time. In my mind I saw it all unwind as the most romantic evening ever and it played out like this: We would be all snuggled up under a blanket as the big fluffy snowflakes fell all around our white horse drawn carriage. We would trot along the empty streets, sipping hot chocolate, and admiring the silent city lit night. We would pass through my favorite city spots like Fountain Square with the jubilant Christmas Tree all lit up for the joyous season and chat about our holiday wishes. Reads right out of a Nicholas Sparks novel right?
Now your dad really wanted to make my dreams come true stop my incessant nagging about the carriage rides. So he had it all set up-the perfect anniversary date. We started our night at a new restaurant in town called Boi Na Braza (All you can eat Brazilian steak house). I mean nothing screams romance like endless amounts of skewered meat passing by your table for 2 hours does. I have to hand it to him though because it was delicious, it was something different, and it was right across from Fountain Square. After overindulging we emerged from the restaurant to find a horse drawn carriage across the street. I immediately hemmed and hawed over the horses and much to my surprise they were there to pick us up. We hopped up behind a man and woman with a set of horses on my very own carriage ride. It wasn't exactly how I pictured it. For starters it was mid-summer and well over 90 degrees, it was still light out so no city lights, I was full of red meat from dinner and bouncing behind the horses so hot chocolate was out of the question-but I was determined to make the best of this wonderful and thoughtful surprise. As we rode through the streets of my beloved city I smiled and took it all in. And then it happened... one of the poor horses got spooked and took a turn into a van with our carriage. After ripping the bumper clear off it was obvious this ride was about to get awkward. After some finger pointing back and forth the man jumped off, presumably to write a note to the owner of said van, as the woman continued on down the road mumbling to herself. At this point we were hoping the end of our romantic ride turned side swipe accident was near as we shot unknowing "what do we do now" looks between each other. The man caught back up with us and rejoined the longest 5 minutes back to Fountain Square. At the end of it all I still wanted our picture with the horses to document the occasion. At the annoyance of our horse whispering tour guides we took one with uncomfortable smiles and then got the heck out of there.
I can't even tell you what we did the rest of that night, but I do know that carriage ride will go down in history. We haven't gone on one since and I don't think I will convince your dad otherwise.
I will see if I can find the picture to add here. As a placeholder I will leave you with one of the earlier pictures of the two of us together circa 2006.
Cute story,
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