Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Bring on 2013!

Hello Sweets,

Happy New Year!!!  I hope you all had a fantastic evening last night, whether at a party or spending it in with the ones you love.  No matter how you rang the new year in as long as you were in a happy moment, I take that as a sign of how your year will be (Nathan and mine will be full of love).

So I know I said yesterday that I would have a great recipe for today's post, but with all the excitement last night, I am honestly a little tired, no a lot tired lol.  I have literally fallen asleep probably 3 times since we got home, so I will do a full post with recipe tomorrow (pinky promise) and tonight's will be a recap of my first ever romantic New Years :)

In all my years I have never done a romantic New Years just for two.  I've done the parties, bars, countdowns with crowds of people, and even just staying home, but nothing as romantic as what Nathan had planned.  Nathan had planned a romantic New Years celebration for two and had an aspect that I love, it was almost a complete surprise.  All I was told was to pack a bag for overnight.  Nathan had bought me a beautiful dress from Victoria Secret and a killer pair of blue heels, so I was really excited.  I threw a bag together, put on my comfy Lulu Lemon pants, grabbed my leather jacket and new Louis Vuitton, and headed out the door about 6pm.  As we headed towards Dallas Nathan started to give me more clues of what our night would entail; a romantic hotel room at a very nice hotel, late dinner reservations, and finally ringing in the new year with fireworks and champagne, just the two of us (and it sounded like perfect night to me!).  We pulled up to a huge beautiful hotel, the Hilton Anatole (check it out here!), with an Asian inspired decor, an endless art collection, beautiful lighting, and impeccable customer service.  Nathan had reserved a beautiful room on the 17th floor with a view of downtown Dallas, perfect view to where the fireworks would be displayed.  The room was also Asian inspired decor with one extra to it, a bottle of champagne already on ice with two glasses waiting for us to enjoy :) (not that we didn't bring some with us).  Nathan popped the cork on the bottle as soon as we were settled so I could get ready for dinner while enjoying some bubbly, and considering it was complimentary it was quite delicious!
All dressed up with places to go!

Nathan had made reservations at an extremely nice steak house called SER (Yum!) located on the top floor (27th) of the hotel.  Our reservations were for 8:15pm and needless to say, I was hungry, but Nathan always picks great steak houses so I was very much looking forward to it.  It was a romantic setting, dimly lit with the kind of service where they pull out your chair and place your serviette in your lap (very classy).  When you first walk in there is a huge wine cellar visible to the clients which displays almost 2,000 bottles of different wines, and the best part is they set an iPad at your table so you can go through their extensive list that gives flavor notes to help make the right choice for your meal.  I'm not a wine connoisseur but I do enjoy it, and since Nathan doesn't drink a lot of wines he let me choose.  We both love our red meat and knew that we would be getting beef, so that definitely helped me decided what to get, obviously we were going to have a red wine but Nathan prefers a sweeter wine then a bold like I do, so I had to really read the descriptions.  I finally settled on a red wine with a mild undertone called Nobil Casa Contini Bonacossi Villa Di Caperrana and ordered a bottle.  Our waitress brought the bottle over and uncorked it allowing me to smell and taste prior to airing, and I am pleased to say that Nathan enjoyed it as much as I did :)
romantic lighting = darker photos, sorry

We started with a shrimp cocktail, then I settled on the fillet and Nathan had a 45 day aged bone in rib eye.  Both were accompanied with creamy garlic mashed potatoes,  Nathan's also came with white asparagus and some mashed potatoes with the skins left on (I love those kinds of mashed potatoes lol).  However there was one aspect of my dish that I didn't think I wanted to even give the time of day and that was roasted bone marrow, but our waitress gave me the quick run down that either you like it our you don't.  It has a buttery flavor, and most people use it atop their steak.  Now I've never been one to not try something new and I wasn't about to start now, so I dived in and ate it atop my steak.  The best way to describe it is, that to me, it tasted like buttery mushrooms and even had a similar texture, and Nathan who does not like mushrooms thought that it wasn't bad either :)
 Nathan's
 Mine
 Sparkly me with yummy wine
 Asked our waitress to help us capture the moment, I sparkle like our view!

After dinner Nathan and I spent the rest of our evening drinking champagne, dancing in our hotel room (how romantic!), and then finally at the stroke of midnight fireworks went off in downtown Dallas and we had a perfect view.
 some bubbly
 fireworks from our hotel room
our first kiss of 2013

Needless to say we had a wonderful start to 2013, full of love, smiles, and laughter.  I hope all of my readers enjoyed their evening as much as we did and that 2013 brings you lots of love and prosperity!  
 couldn't think of a more perfect place to start my new year :)

Until next time.........


Stay sweet,




Jennifer xoxoxo




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