One-Year Anniversary Weekend

This past weekend, my boyfriend James and I celebrated our one-year anniversary. This is what I like to call our “technical anniversary”, since we were good friends for two years prior to this and we dated for a few months before he asked me to officially be his girlfriend. So there’s a whole lot of history which makes it feel like it’s been much longer than a year.

Since we live a little over 2.5 hours from one another, we try to make trips to see each other a few times a month. This trip, he decided to come upstate to visit me. Here’s a mini-recap of my weekend:

On Thursday, the actual date of our anniversary, I was surprised at work with beautiful roses from my boyfriend. I have to admit, I was very surprised, humbled and even a little bit embarrassed. The delivery man and my boss asked if it was my birthday, to which I replied “Nope, my anniversary”. I have never had flowers delivered to me at work before, so this was extra special and sweet.

Friday night my town was having a small fair on our local athletic fields with games, rides and the best part- fair food. I look forward to fairs every summer because there is always an abundance of french fries, cotton candy and one of my favorites- fried dough. While I’m not a huge eater of fried foods (they usually hurt my stomach and just aren’t good for me), I suck it up for my seasonal fried dough indulgence. James and I also ate what he referred to as “some of the best chicken tenders ever”, which is another one of my favorite foods. We ended the night with a walk through town and a visit to the playground I grew up playing on (I still fit on the swings!)

Saturday we woke up early and got ready to spend the day at the Saratoga Racetrack. Besides the frizzy hair, people sweating through their shirts and our endless chugging of water bottles, we had a good time in the 90-degree sunny weather.

One of the best parts about visiting the racetrack is the food. There were so many options to choose from: a mac and cheese truck, Moe’s, chicken BBQ, wood fired pizza, Shake Shack, seafood and much more. I chose the pizza and James got to have his first Shake Shack burger experience (which he was pleased with).

Another obvious fun thing to do at the racetrack is to bet on horses. While I’m not much of a gambler and don’t think of myself as a good luck charm, we decided to test our luck out. James bet in three of the races- and his picks came in last each time. While I found this to be hysterical, he did not. So I decided I’d help him pick out the horse for the last race, and guess what?- it won! He ended up winning back what he spent on gambling plus a few extra dollars. We met up with a friend from college who was visiting home for the weekend and then left around dinnertime to get to our reservations.

We enjoyed a yummy meal at Wheatfields in Saratoga, then headed back to our hotel to watch TV in the air-conditioned room. After a day in the sweltering heat, it was heaven. We finished the night off by going to our favorite frozen yogurt place, 16 Handles, which just so conveniently happened to be one minute from our hotel.

We spent Sunday doing a little shopping and driving, then ate a home-cooked meal and James headed back home. The weekend was so nice and relaxing, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Now back to reality…