12 years!

Oct. 2001, Kolob Utah. Picture by Pamela Terry. This is a scan of a 3x5 print. This was pre-digital photo days because we are ancient dinosaurs.

 
Yesterday was our 12 year anniversary!! Wow, that's a long time. Every year, we have dreams of a fantastic anniversary trip, but it usually ends up being decidedly less fancy. (I mean, who has any money left by Dec. 28th?? Even if you haven't been bled dry from medical bills.)

So we spent most of the day deep cleaning the house and putting all the Christmas stuff and new toys away, taking trips to the attic and storage unit and gathering recycling. If you think that's super romantic, check out my gift for Mark! Tire cables!! Whoo!! But honestly he's been needing them for years and now he'll be much less likely to slide off the road and crash during our next big snowstorm. And really, a clean house = happy wife, so that was all okay with me.

We did want to go see a movie though (free movie passes, drink and popcorn!) so we went to go see Catching Fire. ALSO so romantic! Ha! Blood and violence! But since we've both read the book series, it was one we wanted to see.

My brother and sister-in-law Paul and Nikki came over with their son Cove and watched the kids. They played with finger puppets and watched Planes and had a great time. Thanks, guys!

 

Then we went out to Applebee's because we had a gift card (thank you, ROTC--Mark did some new recruit physicals for them and they gave it to us). The kids ate like we hadn't fed them for days and it was nice to not have to cook dinner.

I'm just grateful to get to spend every day with someone as loving and patient as Mark. I'm so glad we got married all those years ago and am looking forward to another great year. :)

 After the kids had a bath, Luke fell asleep on the couch and Tiger came and snuggled with him. (SO CUTE!) He slept on Madelyn's bed the night before. He's finally figuring out that it's better to just chill out with the family instead of meowing every two seconds and getting shut in the laundry room all night! Hurray!