10 Years

10 years ago Justin and I stood in the pouring rain saying our vows...

Justin started off our 10 year anniversary with 10 types of chocolate, red roses, and he also made us all breakfast (the fact that the bacon pan was burned and he served me my water in a pretty vase that he thought was a fancy cup all made it more endearing).  We exchanged presents (I gave him "10 gifts" but they were all very practical and rather boring)...among other things he gave me a beautiful trivet made of sweetgum leaves off the only surviving tree from the 9/11 site (aside from being leaves, which I love, it's also special that it is in honor of 9/11 since I designed a 9/11 memorial on Furman's campus).

My favorite part of the day was decorating the car as a family.  It said "Just Married (10 years and 4 kids ago)."

AND we tied cans to the back, which made me smile all week long looking forward to it.  Ever since I was a little girl I loved the idea of cans behind a car at a wedding, but for some reason we didn't do it at ours.  The 10 year anniversary seemed like the perfect time :).  The kids listened to them clang as we drove down the street to our "fancy dinner" until we pulled over to untie them so we didn't pollute our street with lost cans.

These have been 10 happy and full years! 

For our evening out, Justin wore the same suit he wore at our wedding!  I wore the same earrings and a necklace Justin gave me for our 5 year anniversary.  I thought about wearing the wedding dress, but decided "nah, I don't want to get it dirty" (haha! as if it hadn't gotten all muddy 10 years ago).

After we decided to tie cans to our car I just knew I'd write a blog post about our anniversary because I was so excited about the car.  I kept envisioning what my post might be like and what our evening would entail.  But, as usually happens in life, the evening wasn't entirely as "fairy wonderland" as I had anticipated.

 

For dinner we headed downtown to a 5 star restaurant with 4 month Patrick in tow.  Ok, now read that last sentence one more time.  I recently read a quote online that said "Cleaning the house with kids in it is like trying to brush your teeth while eating oreos."  Well, going to a 5 star restaurant with a 4 month old is like going into church with your cellphone not silenced.  And if it rings everyone is going to look at you and wonder how you could be so rude! And you will try to silence it or run out of the room quickly to answer the call.  It's like flying in an airplane with a baby... and when the other passengers see you step on board they think "Oh no, please tell me they aren't going to come sit by ME, and please tell me they won't try nursing in my line of vision, and please tell me this baby won't keep me awake the whole flight..."  At least that's what it feels like everyone is thinking, even if they're not.  Well, that is sort of how dinner felt.  Patrick was his sweet adorable self, but each peep he made sent me into a wild frenzy of "sshhhh's," pacifiers, nursing, walking outside, etc. and despite Justin's loving encouragement that he was really doing fine, I just couldn't relax.  Add to that my heart being extra full of emotions from my kids starting school and a myriad of the world's problems I've been holding in the pit of my stomach (which also included guilt at spending a large amount of money on dinner), and it was all I could do to not start crying at one point.  But I remembered I was wearing mascara for once in my life (and of course, being me, it is all natural organic stuff so it isn't waterproof) so I held back the welling up feeling and reminded myself that there was an AMAZING plate of food in front of me and an amazing husband of 10 years.  Highlights of the food were a corn dish I had with lobster, popped corn, and about 10 other tiny delicious ingredients, Justin's fabulous trout with muscadines, a tasty tomato gezpacho (I've never liked gezpacho so I was pleasantly surprised), and most interesting was my lamb that included loin, stomach, and tongue, which I politely ate.

By the end of the meal Justin had walked Patrick to sleep so I wrapped him up in my carrier where he could continue his snooze while Justin and I enjoyed desert.  "Sorry," I apologized, "for being too stressed to just enjoy our dinner."  And in his ever encouraging way Justin told me for the 100th time that night that "It's ok," and "I love you." 

Maybe next year we'll go get pizza for our next anniversary. :)
Regardless, it has been a happy and blessed 10 years.