-1st Anniversary

M and I celebrated our -1st Anniversary this year. One year from this weekend, we'll be getting married. Rather than trying to count forward from when we started dating, we chose to back calculate from when we'll get married.

We gathered up a few things from home -- candles, a small pitcher to use as a vase -- and picked a small bouquet of flowers on the way up to decorate our cabin with. When we checked in, we spent some time going through the lodge's seasonal decorations with Hannah, the owner. They've got some stuff we can use for the wedding, and she seemed really excited to help us start pulling everything together.

After dinner in town, we wound back out the moonlit mountain road to the lodge. Some of the other guests were belly up the bar, so I ordered a Newcastle and M had a glass of water and we were social. All of the lodge staff are helpful, gregarious, and genuinely nice people. Night settles in early up there, so we retreated to our cabin around eight.

The next morning, we had brunch at the lodge. It was our first chance to sample their chef's cooking... and we were impressed. We also picked out our menu for the wedding, re-confirmed the occupancy for the dining room, and picked a wine to go with dinner. We didn't get over to the bakery to talk cakes, but we'll do that another weekend. We've pretty much finalized our guest list at 108, with a handful of people we don't expect to show.

Last night and this morning brought blustery, rainy weather. By the end of brunch, it was hailing. The hail gathered in drifts along the roads, looking almost like mostly-melted snow. All the tree trunks were black from the wet, making the autumnal green-yellows stand out all the more against the grey sky.

Not many couples get to celebrate their -1st anniversary! We're weird like that, and it suits us just fine.