The year of the elephant.

Seven years ago A and I sat in a Silver Diner somewhere in Virginia and shared a slice of warm apple pie with vanilla custard. A wore a jeans jacket, his curly dark hair framed his strong facial features and he looked at me, as if I was the most foreign thing, he has ever experienced. He urged me to close my eyes and hold out my hands and I did. A carefully placed a small package in my hands and as I opened my eyes I teared up a bit at the sight of a beautiful heart-shaped medallion necklace, in it a picture of us from the DC cherry festival taken only a few weeks earlier. That was two months after we started dating. I didn’t expect anything from A on my birthday, given that we have only known each other for such a short time, but that didn’t stop A from finding the perfect gift.

Fast forward seven years, A and I find ourselves in a diner in Oslo, a world away from the Silver Diner in VA. As the waitress comes with our order, I spot this little beauty:

I ask the waitress if I get to keep the mug, after I was done to which she looked at me puzzled, slowly looking at A. At this moment I realize that the cup was actually A’s birthday present to me, combining two things I absolutely love: whales and tea-cups. And Irene from Magie Creative did a fantastic job with this and the other two cups that I would receive the next day (when it was actually my birthday). Irene is located in Italy but she will ship anywhere in the world and yes, she does custom designed mugs and teapots anything you could possibly imagine!

But anyone, who really loves tea, knows that nothing brews tea quite like a proper teapot. Of course, you could go traditional and have your regular old granny pot, but people like me, we don’t do regular pots. We instead do elephant pots:

Personally, I have never seen a more wonderful elephant tea pot, than this one:

And if the tea pot, wasn’t enough, A also surprised me with a little elephant lantern, that hangs above my desk now where it reminds me that life doesn’t always have to be serious. Sometimes it can be playful and enjoyable and silly.

After an elephant tea pot and an elephant lantern I thought I was elephanted out, but it turns out, there is always room for one more elephant:

After seven wonderful years with A, I shouldn’t be surprised at all the thoughtful gifts, but every year I am more and more in awe about A’s craftiness and ability to keep secrets. As it turns out, A had the cups since October of last year and kept it in a safe place where I would never find them (the same goes for the tea pot). I on the other hand am terrible at keeping secrets, but I am remember almost every single detail of the seven most wonderful birthdays I was lucky enough to celebrate with A. After all an elephant never forgets.