Our Fifth Anniversary

Yes, our Fifth Anniversary. Only Five years and we already have 3 children all age 3 and under (currently.) We have been unbelievably blessed.

Moustapha’s parents were so generous to give us miles to take all of the kids with us. We traveled to Maui with our three beautiful children and my mom to celebrate. Thank you Grandma and Jiddy! When we were here for our honeymoon we talked about and dreamed about coming back for our fifth anniversary. I personally never dreamed that we would also have 3 kids with us at the 5 year mark. It is amazing and wonderful AND such a different experience being here with our children.

We set out on an anniversary evening adventure that was to include a special dinner at our favorite restaurant from our honeymoon trip. Unfortunately, things did not work out as we planned.

I made the reservation through opentable.com. I made the reservation for 8:30 so that we could put the kids to bed and then go out for dinner and leave the kids at the house with my mom.

We looked up directions on how to get there from our house. Google maps did not come through for us this time. We were supposed to be on the coast, but instead took a tiny road “upcountry” in the dark. It was not fun! At 8:30 I called the restaurant to tell them of our dilema. It turns out there is pretty much one way to get places around here. So, we had to turn around. We added approximately an hour to our trip, which made us an hour late. But, we let the restaurant know and we weren’t too worried since they were supposed to be open and seating tables until 10. Luckily, we arrived at 9:40 and checked in with the hostess. Moustapha, being the realist that he is, was concerned when they did not seat us right away.

I, on the other hand, thought it would be nuts if they were closing early. Especially since we made a reservation, had called and made our trip from the other side of the island to visit their restaurant.
This is a picture of me while we were waiting for the hostess. Obviously, I thought everything was going to be fine. Well, initially, it was not fine. After waiting for a couple of minutes, a manager came out and told us we could be seated, but the kitchen was closed, so we could only have salads. After a somewhat heated exchange he went back inside and returned shortly to seat us. We were also able to order entrees. I told him I could not believe he tried to turn us away after reading our reservation- which said it was our anniversary and Nick’s was our favorite restaurant from our honeymoon. And guess what???- he didn’t read our reservation. He was totally clueless about our evening. He was just turning us away thinking we had just come downstairs to eat and could come back tomorrow. I was so mad. I didn’t even cry…not in front of him anyway. 🙂 We decided to still eat there- by then, it was 10. So, we wanted to make the most of our dinner. It will probably be our last visit to Nick’s. They are no longer on a pedestal for us.
Here is a photo of Moustapha thimking about dinner. After dinner, we enjoyed hanging out in the lobby waiting for our valet. We were so exhausted. But, it was fun.

Even though things didn’t work out perfectly, we still had a wonderful anniversary. We are so grateful for each other, our children, our families and friends. We have a wonderful life together. God has truly blessed us beyond measure.