our third anniversary.

just in case this is your first time here (in that case, welcome!), and you havent noticed that ive mentioned it about a thousand times, yesterday was jamess and my third wedding anniversary (you can read more about our wedding here). this anniversary was absolutely, by far my favorite ever, because well, our first two were kind of weird: the first one i was eight months pregnant and the second was during a totally crazy transitional phase. but this third one, it was everything a girl could ever ask for. 

first off, james was home so the three of us had a picnic lunch at the beach. 

second, we actually exchanged gifts. i know gift giving is one of those couple things that is supposed to be totally normal, but for some reason, we really suck at it. both of us. somehow we really pulled it together though. 

 last week james treated me to a surprise haircut, and i totally thought that was it, but he also wanted me to have something to open on our anniversary when i gave him his gift, so he got me a hello kitty case for my 3ds. im sure to any mature adult this sounds like a totally weird and silly gift, but 1: i saved up a lot of money for my special animal crossing 3ds xl and its always either left out somewhere or jammed in my purse, and 2: ive got games and chargers and such lost all over the house, so this was really sweet and thoughtful. 

now my gift for james almost didnt happen, i had wanted to get him a pair of rainbow flip flops for months, because he only has the one pair he got on our honeymoon that are too big and falling apart and really terrible and he REALLY needs some nice, grown up flip flops (when you live at the beach, "nice flip flops" is a thing. trust me). the only problem is that theyre pretty expensive and weve been super broke all year and since im barely employed these days i didnt know if i was going to be able to make it happen. for a while it was looking like i wasnt. well i taught private knitting lessons all summer and at the last minute was able to scrape up the money i needed to get them (on sale with free shipping to boot!!!), plus a super rad card from julie ann art:

and third, james took me out for literally the best dinner ive ever had. we went to aliottas via firenze in torrance:

which i found kind of by accident when i was searching yelp for restaurants with gluten free options (because one of these days wahoos, in n out, and sushi are going to get old), and i found that this place not only has a huge gluten free menu if things i actually want to eat, but also has separate gluten free equipment for celiacs!!! literally EVERY single part of the meal was fantastic. i wasnt going to bore you with blurry, poorly lit food pictures, but hey, this is my blog and i really feel like gushing about this food. 

 i got a pasta with clams and white wine sauce:

and james got a seared ahi steak with veggies:

both of which were SO good that we not only demolished them, but also scraped up every last drop of sauce with a spoon, completely throwing away all etiquette so that we could savor every last morsel of deliciousness, it was that good. and not only was it a wonderful meal, for the first time ever since being diagnosed with celiac, i got to order something totally normal (and not weird hippy crap) at a nice restaurant and enjoy it without worrying about getting sick. 

and then there was dessert. normally i dont get dessert when we go out because usually the only thing i can have is ice cream and i am not paying $8 for one serving of ice cream, but this place happened to have my very favorite, creme brulee:

and this was heavenly. im really glad james got a cannoli and i didnt have to share, because i literally almost started crying over how good this creme brulee was. it was perfect, with exactly the right ratio of crust to custard and i swear there were like nine vanilla beans in it. 

i seriously cant even get over how perfect this anniversary was.

thank you aliottas for actually caring about people with celiac getting to enjoy your lovely restaurant, we will definitely be back. 

and thank you james, for taking me out and treating me like a princess, happy anniversary!

p.s. stay tuned for tomorrow, because ive got a GIVEAWAY coming!!!