Yesterday was our 26th wedding anniversary!! As always, a cause for reflection...a reminder of blessings..of sorrows...good times and hard times! Looking back, certain anniversaries serve as markers in my life--
Let's start at the beginning:
September 1, 1984--Our Wedding Day!!!! The weather was lovely, the day was perfect. Our reception was in the church ed wing, and the ladies of our sweet little church made all the food. The youth group entertained us. It was the wedding we had dreamed of!
We headed to Disneyworld for a week, then on to Mystic, Connecticut for a few days for our honeymoon.
It was so wonderful! I got pregnant the very next month, so by our first anniversary we had a 6 week old baby boy named Christopher!
We took him with us on our first anniversary trip, to Boston! He was such an easy baby, and we had the most wonderful time!! We followed the Freedom trail.
We had a baby every other year after that! Although we didn't go anywhere for our 5th anniversary, we had the joy of having just brought home our beautiful daughter Katy. By then, we had Christopher, 4, Nicholas, 2 and newborn Kate.
Just 9 months later we were surprised to find out our youngest was on his way....Michael was born in April 1991. I was 27 then.
I developed some health issues at that age, and also Mikey was born with severe anaphylactic food allergies, which made leaving him very difficult. So, we did not go away again until our 10th anniversary. We had lovely celebrations throughout the years, but at home rather than away. Our 10th anniversary took us back to Mystic, Connecticut.
At that point the kids were 9, 7, 5 and 3.
It was a refreshing time away, until about 4 days into our trip, when Craig's grandma Alma passed away, and we were called home.
I honestly cannot remember going away at all for many years after that. We always celebrated with a lovely dinner out, just the two of us.
The next anniversary that stands out to me was a hard one. It was our 20th. Christopher had finished boot camp and advanced individual training for the Army Reserves in May 2004, and had come home to start college. He started his freshman year at Eastern University on August 26th, but on August 30th we got the call at home that his unit was being deployed to Iraq. We had to pick him up 24 hours later. We were in shock. Our anniversary was the next day. We didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything, but for the kids' sake we attempted to go to the diner for lunch. We were there about 30 minutes, when an older gentleman with a Marine t-shirt came in--I started bawling and we had to leave. It was just too hard.
Christopher was deployed from November 2004-November 2005. He RE-started his freshman year at Eastern at the end of August 2005. From then on, we realized that our anniversary falls right at the time when we are getting college freshman all settled in at their dorms etc. It was a few years later that we went away again for our anniversary.
September 2007 we headed down to Cape May, NJ for a few days around the big day.
It was WONDERFUL!!!
We ate 2 nights at the Mad Batter restaurant! Crab cakes for me, of course!!!!
The next anniversary continued to be busy, getting kids settled into college etc. Christopher, Mary (now our daughter-in-law, but then his fiancee) and Katy were all at Eastern in 2008. Nick and Shayna (now our daughter-in-law, but then his ALMOST fiancee) were at Rutgers.
Mikey was in his senior year in high school.
2008-2009 sailed by! Chris, Mary, and Nick all graduated from college, and Mikey from high school. Chris and Mary got married in June, lived with us for the summer, and then planned to drive out to California in Chris' car to live in Hayward, so he could begin Chiropractor school. They asked us to drive Mary's car out to them, so we decided to make this our big 25th Anniversary trip! This became tricky when Mikey got in his major car accident, spent the whole summer getting root canals and caps, and then my mom had open heart surgery in July. Katy had been in Africa since January '09, and arrived home August 25th.
We got her settled back at Eastern August 26th, helped Mikey prepare to start Ocean County College.
August 30th we set out on our adventure!
Our 25th wedding anniversary was spent in Nashville, TN! SO MUCH FUN!!!
We had a lovely dinner at "Merchant's" in downtown Nashville.
I encouraged Craig to try Fried Green Tomatoes, which he LOVED!
Our trip was wonderful, and worth the 25 year wait....in every way! I encourage everyone to try to make that trip, which I like to call the "Sea to Shining Sea" tour, at least once in their lives (see earlier blog entry, which covers the whole trip). We are so thrilled for Isaac and Bridgid, our dear "other kids", who are taking their STSS tour starting September 15th! Now that he is through with his Navy contract, he and Bridg are taking a few months to drive not only from the Pacific coast back here to the Atlantic, they plan on touring North and South as well. They intend to keep a blog also, so we can share their travels!
Which brings us to today, which is the day after our 26th anniversary. We now have 2 daughters-in-law, Kate just started her final semester at Eastern, Mikey is starting his sophomore year at OCC, and we feel a bit empty-nested. Mike still lives here, and Kate will come back here in December, but it is just the two of us A LOT of the time these days...We went to one of our favorite local restaurants, Jack Baker's Wharfside, for our anniversary dinner. YUM! I had my predictable crab cakes, and Craig had Stuffed shrimp and scallops. And we enjoyed EVERY BITE!
and has never left us all these years. We are constantly amazed at what He has given us. Joy abounds!
No comments:
Post a Comment