The 19 Year Old Cake

We exited the cruise ship back at Civitavecchia dock outside Rome at approx. 7:00am on Monday, July 27th. We took a cab to our airport hotel then took a train into Rome. We spent a good part of the day walking around Rome savoring our last hours there. We stumbled upon a great restaurant for lunch and had delicious food and a cheap bottle of wine that Joey picked out.

We departed Rome at 11:30am on Tuesday, July 28th and arrived back in Portland at noon. Gotta love a 9 hour time difference. If only we could get to Rome in a half hour. That would be awesome.

Anyway, we were home for almost exactly 22 hours and then Michael and I got back on a plane and headed to Los Angeles. For some reason I had my heart set on actually spending our anniversary at the Bel Air Hotel. The very spot where we spent our wedding night 20 years before.

The hotel is absolutely gorgeous, just as I had remembered it.

We walked out on our patio...

and enjoyed our welcome snack of iced tea and fruit plate

We hung out by the pool, which was right outside our room

and I thanked my newest favorite shoes one more time for hanging in with me on the miles and miles of walking we did in Europe

while Michael received Happy Anniversary wishes from his parents

Here I am showing off my new "anniversary bracelet" Michael purchased for me in Mykonos (remember the Murano glass beads I fell in love with)

We also enjoyed a ridiculously expensive yet gloriously delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant.
They prepared for us this special chocolate dessert which we had to take back to the room with us because we were so full even though we shared.

Oh yeah, why the blog title?
Well, a couple months before our anniversary, I decided to give our wedding cake bakery, Rosebud, a call. Their policy is... that you do not freeze the top layer of your wedding cake, you eat it on your wedding day along with the rest of the cake (because it tastes horrible after being frozen for a year). Instead, you come into the bakery on your 1st anniversary and they give you a new little 'top tier' cake to enjoy that is fresh and delicious. Well, on our first anniversary we were in Portland, not Los Angeles. We never went in for our little anniversary cake, but since we were going to be in town on our 20th wedding anniversary, I thought they might still honor their policy... and they were happy to do so.

The little cake was so pretty...

and the inside was exactly like the cake we picked out for our wedding: chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, chocolate ganache & chocolate chip filling.

We enjoyed it thoroughly and didn't even smear it in each others faces :).