Still The One

This year our anniversary happened to fall on Thanksgiving. When we got married it really never occurred to me that our anniversary would fall on Thanksgiving occasionally. We will definitely try to steer our kids clear of getting married on holidays that rotate or anytime near Christmas! 

We hadn't really made any plans for our anniversary and money was tight. While we had tried to put some money aside, life happens and money you think you'll have doesn't always end up being available. I wasn't sure how much money we did have, so I tried to find things to give Eric that didn't cost really anything.

I was running out of time to do anything, but thankfully Eric had plans the night before Thanksgiving that took him away for a good chunk of the night and I was able to get the projects done that I had wanted to.

So on Thanksgiving morning I left a 3-4 page letter on his computer while he was in the shower. I went about cleaning the house and when he emerged from our room, he had tears in his eyes and he was very emotional about what I had written.

I then gave him this beauty:

I wasn't sure he'd like it because it is a bit more 'girly', but he was also emotional about this gift. That made my heart happy.

We then went about celebrating Thanksgiving and trying to decide what'd we'd do the next day.

As always, Eric's mom said she'd babysit over night. (She's pretty much a saint) And so we had time to do whatever we wanted.

I like to be surprised and because I didn't know what the money situation was - I let Eric plan things. I did tell him that I wanted him to do whatever HE wanted to do to celebrate our anniversary, and so we did.

After dropping the kids off, we headed out. I had no idea where we were going and we had a fun drive. Eric mentioned things like, 'I need to remember how to get there', 'I don't know if you were even paying attention to how to get there', 'Does this look familiar'?

So really I had no idea where in the world we were headed until we pulled up at LaserQuest. I was laughing so hard. For a little more background on LaserQuest and laser tag, you can read this. I was also laughing because once again, I had so not dressed for the occasion. I had boots on and a shirt that would be seen quite easily with black lights.

We went in and got all paid up and were able to have a game with just the 2 of us. Eric made sure we used the same code names as the 1st time we played and we went to work. It was kind of 'boring' having just 2 of us playing, but it was also that much more fun. We played hide and seek quite a bit and I improved on my game and learned a few things in the years that have passed - but I still got whooped.

After the game we decided we'd go get food. We decided we'd have like a 'Walk Down Memory Lane' type anniversary and went to Golden Corral. We then decided we'd head to South Towne Mall, which also has some memory for us. I had some birthday money to spend and so we went shopping. I found an outfit I wanted and then we headed home.

We played a trivia game, which I won - thank you very much! And then went to bed.

We woke up, got ready for the day and headed out to Orem. We had to play responsible Mom and Dad and get a kids instrument fixed. 

We stopped at Cafe Rio and had a nice lunch. We then dropped the instrument off to get fixed and headed over to Fat Cats to go bowling. We played 2 games and I lost miserably, both times. One day, I'll play like I did when I was young and maybe I'll whoop Eric one day.

After bowling we went and picked the kids up and had dinner. I was pleased to hear that the kids were mostly good and that they had fun with Grandma. 

I'm thankful I've had the chance to be married to Eric for 16 years. I can't even believe it's been that long. I still feel like we're kids sometimes. I am thankful for the man that Eric is and that he so willingly sacrifices so much for me and the kids. He's an amazing husband and a terrific father. I love his sense of family and how proud he is of his family. I am thankful that he took a chance on a quiet girl some 18 years ago and that he hasn't left her side!