First Anniversary (2007): Ben found out that spring/summer that he needed to have his wisdom teeth out, and let me tell you, it was no easy task. Ben has some extra bones in his mouth that make for an orthodontist's dream in terms of pay day. As you can imagine, to have wisdom teeth in such a mouth removed, he had to be knocked out completely and it was full on oral surgery. Somehow, this was scheduled for right before our anniversary. No biggie. We didn't have any plans, anyway, so I played wifey and did my best to take care of my sore, chipmunk cheeked hubby. One problem. I had a cold and had just gotten my hands on the final Harry Potter book. I wasn't sleeping because I couldn't breathe through my nose (plus all the reading) and Ben was still camped out in the chaise in the living room because his whole head was still hurting. So, the night before our anniversary, we ordered pizza and I stayed up to finish my book. After midnight, we pulled our cake top out to see if that really works or not. Turns out, it does! Our wedding cake was awesome on the big day and apparently my mom and I wrapped it well because that top tier still tasted great after a year in our deep freeze. So even though we were both not feeling great, our first 365 celebration was a great success.
Second Anniversary (2008): The fall after we were married, we took a long-weekend-honeymoon-esq-trip to the Black Hills. The summer of '08 saw us taking another trip, this time to Africa with an alumni group from Doane (it had been six years since I traveled there as a Doane student). We spent three weeks in Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. It wasn't really a honeymoon because we were traveling with six or seven other couples, but it was an amazing adventure. It also took an amazingly long 24+ hours to get all the way to NE from Rwanda when we returned which just so happened to be after midnight on August, 5. We crashed at Ben's parents but then had to hit the road the next day, totally jet lagged, because I had to report the following day for new teacher meetings at Palmer Public School (yeah, not such great timing for that, especially since I didn't know about it until after we got back!). We traveled home along Highway Six, which I happen to remember quite distinctly because Ben got pulled over for speeding in Filmore County. Oops! Thankfully he just a warning ticket (which I pasted into the back of our Africa scrapbook). I guess you could call the warning and not a fine the NE State Patrol's anniversary present to us!
Third Anniversary (2009): Baby Welsch #1 was due on August 2nd. He was born on July 22. That meant by the time our third wedding anniversary rolled around, we had been proud parents for exactly two weeks. My mom had come back down to see us and get a baby fix, and she insisted that we do something fun for our anniversary. Funny how Harry Potter keeps cropping up here, but a new movie was out at that time, so that's what we decided to do for our "fun" outing. I nursed teeny tiny Harrison, handed him off to Grandma, and we left for the movie. The problem with HP stuff is that it is llllloooonnngggg. When you add to that all the previews and the few minutes of driving time to get to the theatre, we ended up being gone a bit too long. We came home to a screaming baby who clearly wanted to eat but hadn't been left any bottles because we still hadn't introduced that by then. My poor mother; HD left a mark on her arm because he wanted to nurse that badly and Mom's forearm was the only thing he could get at it. Clearly traumatized by all of this, we did not go out for an anniversary dinner. Pretty sure we got take out so we could eat at the house and be ready for the next nursing session. Funny how children so immediately change your priorities and plans, eh?
Fourth Anniversary ( 2010): Yep. Still no clue. I tried looking back through my iPhoto albums to see what we were doing then but there are no pictures from the 5th and all that bookend it are just random shots of Harrison doing stuff around the house. It's a mystery, I guess!
Fifth Anniversary (2011): The first weekend in August is prime family reunion time, and sure enough, both of our families were gathering then. Unfortunately, they were at different locations, so we had to pick just one to attend. The Jansens were meeting at Mahoney State Park, which is awesomely close to us; the 5th happened to be the first day of the reunion. We spent the morning taking Harrison to the Lincoln Children's Zoo (which he loved), and then we headed to Mahoney. It was hotter than flippin' hot that whole weekend and I was uber-pregnant as well, but we had a good time seeing family and entertaining HD at the state park. We even remembered to take a photo on our actual anniversary!
Sixth Anniversary (2012): Another summer, another trip. And again, this one was to see the Jansen fam. This time we went to Pierre to visit my grandpa, and aunt and uncle (and my mom, who met us there). This was our first time ever staying with kiddos in a hotel and they were both got colds the day before we left. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but actually, the travel and time in Pierre went really well. Unfortunately, HD & RL shared their germs with the two of us, so Ben and I were both feeling just peachy by the time we packed up and headed back to NE, which just so happened to be on August 5. The children decided to give us a wonderful present, though, and slept for just over half of the trip home; it was so lovely and kind of them because I was really hurting thanks to all the sinus congestion (oddly similar to our first anniversary....weird). In a way, though, it's so fitting that I've been sick on a couple of our anniversaries. When Ben proposed to me, I had the nastiest cold and was pretty much a mess. I knew that he really loved me because otherwise he never would have asked for my sneezing, sniffling, coughing, aching hand in marriage! That he still loves me (tissues, cough drops, and all) six years later, is a sign of great things yet to come for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment