9 Years In {aka November, Part 1}

It's been nuts lately - so much to share, so little time! But if all goes well, in the next few days I'll have our November memories safely archived. Wish me luck.

First up: our anniversary, which was...interesting. I joked with a few people that it was canceled, but I didn't for one second forget that it was, very much, still a beautifully significant day in which we were very blessed to celebrate the gift of each other--and not be on opposite corners of the globe. It fell on a week when the timing just wasn't the greatest: I was in exhaustion mode, a kid had a fever, Peter had a late meeting on our actual anniversary, and he had to travel over our anniversary weekend. So it was very much a "this-is-real-life" affair. We celebrated the night before our actual anniversary with dinner in the dining room for two, interrupted frequently enough by the fruit of our love, and our gift to ourselves was a new toilet seat (of the fancy self-lowering variety!). Like I said, real life.

Don't be jealous, now.

But it's our life--the kind I wouldn't want to trade no matter how glamorous others' lives may seem from the outside. He left some goodies for me to find when after I overslept on our actual anniversary (the kind I can actually eat!) and we had some really special moments too that day and in the days to follow between all the busy-ness.

Gearing up for a tough work weekend. Obvs.

Our "big" celebration  happened when Peter took off work the Monday after his weekend of travel so we could spend the day together. We did some old married couple shopping in the morning while all three kids were in school, hitting the bookstore first, of course, followed by a bunch of furniture stores and the phone store (mine is slowlyyyy dying)--and we managed to only buy two small things: a collector's edition of Jane Austen novels [because duh] and a back scratcher from World Market because Erik had been begging us for one. Back scratching is his ultimate love language.

After we picked Ethan up (he still only has school in the mornings) we spent the afternoon outside, taking a late autumn walk through one of our favorite places, Hudson Gardens. They gave Ethan a nature scavenger hunt card so it was especially fun for him.

Seriously love this place.

I was also perusing Hudson Gardens with future anniversaries in mind. I've often said that my biggest regret from our wedding is not getting better quality photos. In an effort to be frugal (getting married near NYC is not overwhelmingly affordable), I found a less expensive but also less experienced photographer. She took a huge quantity of really good photos and gave us the rights to every single one, but the file sizes were so small that none of them are great image quality, especially for printing anything larger than a 4x6, which makes me sad. So I decided last year that for our 10 year anniversary next year, our gift will be to dust off my dress/Peter's uniform and get some fun professional photos. Lucky Peter, ha. Maybe at Hudson Gardens, maybe somewhere else (local friends, any recommendations?). We've got a whole year to plan, of course, but that's always half the fun.

On the evening of our actual anniversary, despite all the chaos, Peter grabbed our wedding album and we all piled on the couch to page through some of the incredible memories that we do have, high resolution or not. It was a beautiful impromptu few minutes together.

I also was finally able to save the only video footage that we have from our wedding, which I have been trying to do for all nine years we've been married. It was taken by our wonderful friend Brother Carlos, and I watched it about fifteen billion times that day with a big goofy grin on my face. I'm sticking it here, as well as backing it up a few other places, for safe-keeping.

I said it before and I'll say it again: I'm grateful for the gift of every blessing that's come our way the past nine years, and I'm doing my feeble best not to take it for granted. Although I never could've imagined the details--the sheer depth of all the good or the fact that even the happiest seasons are still punctuated by their fair share of challenges--it is still a beautiful, incredible thing to gradually understand that this life I'm living is ultimately the one I'd always dreamed of. The sacramental gifts continue to grow and mature along with us, and as I step back and look at us, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, I can only thank God for this incredible, loyal, hardworking, supportive, caring, giving, snarkastic soulmate He hand-selected for me and for our family.

Easily the best decision I've ever made.