Friday, June 20, 2008

Happy Anniversary to us!

Two quick updates:

1. We got out I600a approval in the mail today! YAY! That means that we're officially approved by the government to go forward with the adoption. It was just a formality, since there's really no reason that they would have turned us down, but it's nice to know that that part is out of the way.

2. Matthew is no longer sick and our quarantine is over. YAY! We celebrated by going to Walmart to buy plastic storage containers for a project I'm working on. Fun stuff. :)

OK, so on to the real reason for the post. We're gearing up for a fun weekend at our house! Remember when I said that we tend to overcelebrate holidays? Tomorrow is our 11 year wedding anniversary, and I'm planning a whole weekend Anniversary extravaganza! YAY!

Originally Shawn told me to book a cabin for the weekend in the middle of nowhere town an hour from our house, which is my absolute FAVORITE thing to do, but that's not exactly an inexpensive weekend getaway and at the last minute I decided that I didn't want to spend that much money on it, so we're planning a fun weekend at home instead.

There is a nice guest room and a bathroom in our basement that we very rarely use. I only go down there when I need to clean it, and otherwise I kind of forget that we even have those rooms. So every now and then we go on vacation to our basement. We sleep in the guest room, the kids sleep on the floor in the playroom and we pretend like we're out of town. We let the kids stay up late and watch movies, we go out for breakfast on Saturday morning and we spend the weekend doing things that we don't normally do. Yes, we're weird, but it's really fun! The kids absolutely love it and it's a fun break from normal life.

So this weekend for our anniversary we're taking another vacation in the basement. I have all sorts of fun things planned for the weekend, and at some point I'm hoping to drop the kids off with friends so that we can go out for a romantic dinner. So we're leaving for the basement tonight and we'll be home on Sunday. :)


In honor of our anniversary I originally decided to tell the story of how Shawn and I met and got married, but I decided that it was too long and probably only interesting to us, so I've edited the post to give you the extremely short version.

We met at work in 1995. He says he knew that he wanted to marry me as soon as we met, but I was still getting over an old boyfriend and wasn't interested in dating. He was persistent though! We started spending time together outside of work, something I called "hanging out with a friend" and he called "dating the girl I'm going to marry". Needless to say it was kind of complicated relationship for a while.

Two years went by, and during that time I moved in to the apartment next door to Shawn, something I called "moving close to a friend" and he called "moving my girlfriend next door to me so that I'm that much closer to being married to her".

We became best friends, absolutely inseparable, but I still had issues with the old boyfriend that I couldn't seem to let go of and I couldn't even think about falling in love with someone else until I had resolved that. Shawn stuck with me, he was there the night my dad died, he was there when I found out that the old boyfriend was marrying someone else and he was there when the old boyfriend called off the wedding and came back into my life briefly, and he was there when the old boyfriend broke my heart again.

Somewhere along the way I realized that the most that anyone could ever ask for in a husband was for them to be kind, loving, someone who picks you up when you're sad, someone who makes you laugh and someone you want to spend every minute with. And that's when the light came on. I was madly, head over heels in love with my best friend. Who better to spend the rest of your life with than your best friend? I call that "my epiphany". Shawn calls it "about freakin' time". :)

So thanks to my best friend Shawn, who eventually became my boyfriend, fiance and husband, I was able to mend my heart and give it to someone who will always keep it safe.

And we lived happily ever after. :)




5 comments:

Autumn said...

What a great day to get married. Tomorrow is also my 11th anniversary! What a sweet story, I'm so glad you realized he was the one for you.
Happy Anniversary!

Mandalynn said...

You got engaged on Christmas Eve, and I got married on Christmas Eve...that's a good day too! Oh, and you must've meant 1997, not 2007...yes? Thanks for sharing your dating/hanging out story!

I have to say that vacationing at home is a great idea! We also have our guest room and playroom in the basement so I see a vacation down there sometime soon in our future!

Mandalynn (from BBC)

Heather said...

Happy anniversry to you two! And the vacation in the basement is an AWESOME idea. If we had a basement, I would definitely do it.

Minyo said...

Happy Anniversary! Awesome idea to vacation in the basement!

Melanie said...

Happy Anniversary! :)