The Aluminum Anniversary

A “friend” of mine pulled up next to this hot guy I had been “noticing” for quite a while, and rolled down her car window to tell this boy, rather loudly, that “she wants to have your babies!”. I, of course, calmly countered this comment with a “NO I DON’T!!!” followed by an “OMG- I can’t believe you just did that.”

Little did I know, I would in fact have this boys babies. And marry him. And still be together 16 years later.

Ryan and I have been married for ten years. TEN! Ten sounds so long but it feels like nothing. In this day in age, I think ten years is definitely something to celebrate.

Speaking of celebrate…

Ryan and I did not take a proper honeymoon because we were trying to be wise with our money and save it to put towards a house. It wasn’t long before we regretted this decision and began planning a second honeymoon  for the summer following our One Year Anniversary. Welp. Surprise! We’re pregnant! Can’t go away now, we need to buy a house!

So we bought the house. We did go on a weeks vacation that summer to the Ocean. On our way there, Ryan’s diesel truck broke down and we had to have it towed to DE. We were in OC for a week without a vehicle and would have to get a ride home from our vacation because his truck would need to stay in DE for another week due to the extensive service it needed. $5,000.00 later…

That’s okay. ONE DAY we will get to go on that nice trip.

Fast forward 8 years. We have a lovely young German fellow staying with us for the year who we fall in love with and becomes a part of our family. We are 100% going to Germany to celebrate our 10 year Wedding Anniversary. Let’s make it two weeks and we will travel Europe. It’s a deal. Done.

Year 9, I get pregnant. Nope. I am not going to Europe with a toddler. That will not be fun at all. Our then German daughter who we also love and adore, decides to then plan a vacation to the US with her family during the summer of year 10.

So, we better hurry quick and remodel this kitchen because we can’t have them come here and stay with us and still have this terrible kitchen that I swore we would have torn out by now… (anyone see a pattern here?)…

Ryan, for our ten year Anniversary, could we please remodel our kitchen? That would be a GREAT gift. I mean. Since we can’t got to Europe and all.

Well, we can’t. Because it costs a lot of money.

Fine. Fine. I’ll accept that. I don’t want to but I understand. I mean we have a credit card, but yeah, you’re right. Let’s be responsible. I mean, what is another $10,000.00 on top of the ENTIRE HVAC system we had to replace last year??

Cool. So. Lets just do a little mini vacation. A beach! Totally. Let’s do it. I will send you email after email of all the great vacation deals I have found online and I will let you pick one and surprise me. It will be such a surprise. Could you imagine getting to do something so fun after the terrible year we have had? Dream. Dream. Dream.

Taxes come. Actually, no. They don’t come. Taxes PAID.

No mini vacation.

Okay, cool. That’s cool. It’s fine. I’m okay with it.

We have a gift card to Texas Roadhouse. <tears. tears. tears.>

Luckily my Husband has enough sense to tell me that we will in fact not be having dinner at The Texas Roadhouse for dinner on our Ten Year Wedding Anniversary.

Guess what we did on Thursday for our Ten Year Wedding Anniversary? We went to Texas Roadhouse. With the kids.

From two weeks in Europe to an evening at Texas Roadhouse.

Life.

“If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won’t matter. You will be able to move out into the world in strength.” -Timothy Keller

Our marriage is not perfect and it does not always feel strong but what I can say about 10 years of ups and downs, those trials have “tested our faith” and our marriage and it has “produced steadfastness” (undeviating consistency, unwavering strength) . I know this because I was able to have dinner with my family at Texas Roadhouse and have a good time. Now of course, I was a bit disappointed, and Ryan told me not to cry when I mentioned that I couldn’t believe this is where we were in life after ten years, but I enjoyed it.

Look at this life we have made.  We have more than we need (though I could debate a few things =P ) an amazing, beautiful family and a lot of love.

Happy Anniversary, Ryan.

____________

*Update. On Saturday morning, Ryan surprised me with an overnight stay in the City. We did touristy things (Ft. McHenry, O’s Game, Light City) and slept in a KING SIVE bed (amazing) and watched Cable TV all morning and I didn’t have to cook one meal. It was great and very sweet. And in true “us fashion”, we walked around for an hour and a half looking for a place to have dinner because we wanted something specific and then by the time we decided to “settle” there was a two hour wait eat every restaurant- so we ended up back at our hotel in a mediocre restaurant. BUT my food was really good so it all worked out. =)