A Dozen

Matt and I celebrated our 12th anniversary over the weekend. Hard to believe we have been married for a third of our lives, and together as a couple for half! It's amusing to me that the girls have a hard time seeing me in this photo and recognize Matt easily. I have always said he will still look 12 when he's 50, and so far he is on that track. I'd better discover the fountain of youth soon!

2 kids. 23 and 24.

Historically, we do not buy each other anniversary gifts. We buy a joint gift that corresponds with the year we are celebrating. For example, we bought concert tickets on our first anniversary (paper), an Adirondack love seat for the outdoors on the fifth (wood), and just so happened to need and purchase a car last year on our 11th (steel). This year the gift was pearls. Matt declared that 'lame', and that he hoped the 12th would really be 'quadcopter'. More on that later. We've been working on some big home stuff recently, so I thought we'd just call it good and let it go. On Friday night Matt came home to pick me up for the radiology graduation dinner (night before our anniversary) and brought me a dozen roses. It was such a sweet surprise, and flowers are always meaningful from him because they are a rare gift.

So, the quadcopter. Matt first saw one of these while we were lounging around Coronado in San Diego. These guys were flying a drone around and Matt just could not stop watching. He went and talked to them and learned about it, and he has been obsessing about it ever since. I finally pushed him to go ahead and order it since he buys almost nothing ever, and I try to encourage his leisure pursuits because he really works so hard. After he pulled the trigger on the purchase, I smoothed over his usual money-spending guilt by saying, "Well, Happy Anniversary! And Happy Father's Day!" And suddenly he felt just fine.

Anyway, on our actual anniversary we decided to spend it at home with the girls and have a date night the following day (for the record, it was our usual Tap House followed by a walk to Chester's for dinner). We thought it would be fun to watch our wedding video with them, especially since they are preparing to be flower girls next weekend. It was sweet seeing their reaction to family members and the whole process of a wedding. We had just watched the part where Matt surprised me with pearl earrings on our wedding day and made me cry, and suddenly I had a beautifully wrapped package in my hands and a husband wearing a big old grin. I was elated and sappy to open a beautiful strand of pearls that he had purchased for this anniversary. I had to put them on and wear them right away, even in t-shirt and yoga pants. We grilled steaks and lobster tails after the girls were in bed and enjoyed  dirty martini and dinner on the deck. I was still wearing the pearls. They are truly gorgeous.

I love surprises! Selfie was required!

This is the face of a man who is fired up about his new hobby

Working on his landing pad. I will admit here now that I actually think the quadcopter is super amazing. It can fly up to 3/4 mile in any direction and has a high definition camera on it. Matt has recorded some awesome videos of our property and neighborhood in recent days, and I am pretty sure he will be carting it along most places we go from here on out.

So now that I've talked about these tangible gifts, let me talk about the real one: our marriage. After 12 years of marriage I have learned a lot of things about myself, my husband, life, and the commitment of marriage. We spent a lot of time talking on the deck that night about our marriage and how we have grown together. What is most crazy to us is that we have really grown up together--yes, we literally did (in the same town), but really we were kids when we started dating (17 and 18) and got married pretty young--and that neither of us are the same person we were when we said 'I do'. We both have strengths and shortcomings and issues that we didn't then. What a blessing it is to have evolved together, and to still be the great team that we have always been. It is not always easy, but it's not supposed to be. We are not promised ease in our lives or perfect relationships, but we can always choose to love one and honor one another. Something the pastor who married us said in our pre-marriage counseling has always stuck with me. He was talking about how people use term, "I hope" when referring to longevity of relationships. "Oh I hope I have a good marriage", or "I hope we still love each other in 10 years", etc. His advice to us was, "Don't hope. Decide." We can hope we have the kind of marriage our children will want to emulate someday, or we can decide. We can hope we have a God-honoring commitment, or we can decide. There's a big difference. The decision requires action. So, we will continue to decide over and over and over--even when it's hard. I am so thankful for the blessing of my husband, and for the life and family we have built together. Cheers to the next dozen years!