beautiful anniversary weekend

The hubby and I celebrated 28 years of marriage on Saturday!

We had a lovely, relaxing day in Evanston together.

We ate at one of our favorite restaurants - The Lucky Platter.

Brian chose the portabella mushroom burger.

I had the BBQ chicken pizza.

We couldn't have asked for better weather ~

sunny, clear blue skies, temps in the 70's.

I loved the outside of this antique shop - so charming!

Funny enough, the inside was just "OK". Was dark

and stuffy and mostly overpriced stuff from estate sales.

However, we found another place - http://www.secrettreasures.biz/Secret_Treasures/Home.html -

which we loved. Everything was perfectly arranged, there was an

 awesome array of vintage items, and everything was well-priced.

Look at all these gorgeous dishes!

Loved this bowl and depression glass cake plate,

but nowhere to put anymore stuff like this.

Sets of dishes and glassware, perfectly arranged.

If one should need teacups and saucers, this is the place to go!

So, what did I come home with?

A small ironstone pitcher...

some vintage dice...

(Not all these were from the store; I had some at home)

three mini metal drawers...

(What I'm going to do with these, I have no idea yet. They were too 

cute to pass up - and only $1 each. The creative wheels are turning!)

an Aynsley England (Pembroke pattern) dish...

(I have a crush on pretty little English or German dishes like this.

I use them in my bedroom and bathroom to hold jewelry.)

and some vintage keys.

Two of the large ones and the three tiny, rusty ones are from this antique store.

The others were previously purchased on eBay.

After we were done dining and shopping, we took a walk around

one of the neighborhoods we were in. I saw this window box full of flowers

up high on an apartment building and admired the beauty of the flowers

against the textures of the old brick and wood.

Can't take a day trip to Evanston without relaxing by Lake Michigan!

We spread out a blanket and laid in the sun. I even fell asleep

for about half hour!

This was my view as I laid on my back.

Yes, the sky was this blue. I didn't retouch this photo at all!

Same with the beautiful shades of blue in this photo - no retouching.

The Lake was like the color of the Caribbean Sea (dreaming).

Hope you had a good weekend, too!