25 and Counting

Hubby and I hit 25 years of wedded bliss last week and celebrated last night with dinner at Wrigley Mansion, which has a little history of its own. William Wrigley, Jr., of chewing gum fame and fortune, built the mansion in the late 20s as a 50th anniversary gift for his wife Ada. It sits on a hilltop in the Phoenix Biltmore area, was the smallest of five homes they owned, and was used as their winter cottage -- small being 16,850 square feet and 24 rooms! In July 1992, Geordie Hormel, an heir to the Hormel meat packing family, purchased "The Wrigley Mansion Club" to preserve the landmark.

We had dinner in Geordie's Restaurant & Lounge in the room that used to be the Wrigley's formal dining room. Hubby and I wandered through much of the mansion before eating and I think there was a fireplace in nearly every room. It was old and beautiful.

A few views from the hill, including this first photo of Camelback Mountain ...

The beautiful double doors and entry staircase ...

I took photos as we meandered about ...

Check out this old switchboard ...

There was a wedding in progress ...

These amazing peacock lamps flanked the vanity in the ladies room ...

It was a very nice evening and dinner was lovely. My first course was the Beet Salad, full of mixed greens, golden beets, apples, candied nuts and goat cheese with garlic dressing. I chose Root Beer Braised Short Ribs for the entree that came with pureed sweet potatoes and root vegetables which were, unfortunately, mostly beets. As much as I love beets, I wish our server had warned me that I'd be overdosing on them with what I ordered. Dessert was fun -- we ordered a plate of beignets with dipping sauces of chocolate, caramel and blackberries. When Hubby tried the blackberry sauce, he asked what I tasted. It was decidedly garlicky, which seemed odd. We asked our server what was in it and he said blackberries and cream. So he took our blackberry sauce back to the chef and returned with additional beignets and sauce without garlic as it was supposed to be. No one knew how the garlic got into our sauce.

It was nice to be off the couch and out of the house, celebrating with the man of my dreams. While we did not exchange gifts, I figured 25 years was worth at least a gag gift on my part and you know I have that embroidery machine ...

You may not be able to read these easily because I used white thread on white boxer shorts and
embroidered our wedding date on the fly and our initials on the leg. He got a good laugh out of that. But the pièce de résistance was the second pair. Here's what I put on the leg ...

And here is Alec Baldwin as Pete Schweddy, along with the gals from Saturday Night Live doing their hilarious skit on NPRs Delicious Dish - Pete's Schweddy Balls. Always makes us laugh!