Today is Jennifer’s and my 10th wedding anniversary. In some ways it’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years. In other ways, some things seem so long ago. Jennifer is an avid scrap booker and enjoys reliving memories. So, starting 2 weeks ago we’ve been looking back – each day on a different year – looking at photo albums, watching old home videos, and trying to do one thing each day that was reminiscent of that year.
Two weeks ago we started by looking back at the year we first met, 1996. (I called it year T-2) Actually we met in December 1995. I was living in Maryland and was down in Florida visiting family for Christmas. In July of 1996 Jennifer came up to visit, and we went to watch the fireworks on the mall in Washington DC. Two Friday’s ago we went out to dinner at the Polynesian resort at Disney. From there you can see the Magic Kingdom fireworks, except that it poured that night and they were cancelled.
We spent the next day at Epcot, just the two of us. Jennifer and I have hosted a big Oktoberfest in our home every year since we’ve been married, so we celebrated that by having dinner in Germany.
Some of the other things we did… In our second year of marriage, we went to Costa Rica and Yosemite, so the day we celebrated that year we had lunch together at a park. In our third year of marriage our oldest daughter, Ainsley, was born, so we went to her school to have lunch with her. In our fifth year of marriage our son, Aidny, was born, so we went together to pick him up from preschool and took him out for his favorite lunch – McDonalds. In our 6th year of marriage, we took a 10-day trip to Colorado and Wyoming, so that evening we watched videos of the trip with our kids.
It was a bit of a challenge trying to do something every day and still manage work, kids, household chores, and so forth. We did miss a couple days. But we both thought it was a very meaningful way to celebrate 10 years of marriage
Oddly, several of our attempts to do things reminiscent of past years bombed. I mentioned the fireworks that were rained out the first day. When we went to Ainsley’s school to have lunch with her we found out they were not allowing visitors because of standardized testing. Then today we went to TGI Fridays for lunch – the place we went on our first date. It was closed because of a power outage. Strange.
Maybe it’s a sign that instead of trying to relive the past we should be looking ahead and being intentional about creating new memories.
So, today on the anniversary of the day we committed to spending the rest of our lives together, we’re going to look ahead at the hopes and dreams we have for the next 10 years together.
I love you, Jennifer. And I look forward to the adventures God will have us taking on together in the years to come.