For our sixth wedding anniversary, Jodi and I got a treat. The day of our Anniversary Dad and Anne watched the kids all the way through the following morning. We started that morning with Church and a pot luck lunch thereafter (a fine Lutheran Sunday) and then headed back home.

I work in the type of environment where I can potentially get paged at the drop of a hat and need to fix or implement something. In many cases it can be handled quickly and from home, but this weekend, something that came up that could not. On Sunday, I was requested to assist a fellow engineer in handling an issue, as he had been on a "tech bridge"/conference call for quite some time. Since I had already driven into work once and entered three tech bridges myself that weekend (each of shorter duration) I felt there wasn't any time I could offer. I'm typically the type that will dive right in to pound on whatever isn't working, but I recognized that this night had the potential to be the best one in years or the worst one in years. You can guess which I chose.

So anyway, I'm sitting at work... Kidding! No way was I going to let that happen. About 4:30PM Jodi and I headed toward the hotel to check in. We stayed at a Wyndham in North Dallas that we've stayed at with the kids in the past. We checked in and found the room to be nice, as always. Some gouda cheese & crackers, a bottle of wine, and some bottled water awaited us. We hung out in the hotel room for a while and then headed down to dinner.

When we got to the lobby, I asked Jodi to head to the car and told her I would be right out. When she stepped outside, I talked to the gentleman at the counter and asked if he could give us a free room upgrade (on top of the upgraded room we already had) since it was our anniversary and the parking lot was mostly empty. He was happy to oblige and I quickly moved our stuff down the hall to our new room. Jodi called my cell phone from hers to ask what I was up to and I informed her of the upgrade. The night just kept getting better.

Jodi and I headed to dinner at a nearby restauraunt called "The Melting Pot." This place was recommended to me by a couple of co-workers that were familiar with it. Like the name implies, it was a fondue joint. We headed upstairs to the restaurant and were seated at a table for four, next to another table with a family containing small kids. Now, I love kids, even have a few myself, but that's not what I had in mind. I requested that we be moved to a two-seater table instead and was moved to another room, containing only three such tables. This was nice, but as I sat there I decided I wanted the one furthest from the hallway and asked if we could move again. They gave the right answer. I requested that they dim the lights in that room a bit, as well. Again, the right answer.

When the waitress came, Jodi went for a Pina Colada and I went with a glass of red wine (Californian, not French (bunch of cheese-eating surrender-monkeys.)) We ordered an all-inclusive known as the "lobster indulgence." To start with, we had a gruyere & swiss cheese fondue that they brought bread (Hawaiian, pumpernickel, and french loaf,) veggies (celery, carrots, and broccoli,) and apples for dipping. That was a lot of fun, if you've never done it before. Our salads were exquisite, though there's no dipping to be done. The main course though, had lobster, shrimp, filet mignon, and top sirloin that we cooked in a broth (the mojo fondue selection) and have about ten different types of sauces to dip it in. There were also vegetables cooking in the broth at the same time that were delicious. Dessert had marshmallows, fruits, poundcake, cheesecake, and brownies that we dipped in the "cookies n' cream marshmallow dream" chocolate fondue. It, like everything else, was fantastic.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and got the chance to relax in the hot tub and then dry off on a nice Texan night outside. We sat outside at a table and just chatted for a while. We wanted to catch a movie, but the DVD player in my laptop was broken, so we couldn't watch "Hidalgo" and the movie selection at the hotel was rather disappointing. That's OK though, because the Olympics were on TV. That following morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed home. It was a wonderful anniversary that we wouldn't mind repeating again next year.