9 years? It feels like 9 minutes...

Alright folks, we are now in the midst of the time of year that I call "celebration alley," which those of you not from the Midwest may not get that it is a play on words of tornado alley.  Every year, January is spent recovering from the craziness of the Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah season.  Then we start in by celebrating Valentine's day and  Delilah's birthday in February.  March is spent celebrating our anniversary and Jameson's birthday.  And then three weeks later, we round out the season with my birthday in April.  After that, things settle down a little bit until the summer festivities.

Now back to the title of my post.  9 years?  It feels like 9 minutes...under water!  That's one of Russell's famous jokes regarding marriage.  I'm fairly certain it originated with his dad, but I digress.  This year marks our 9 year anniversary.  It's a pretty big milestone in my mind, even though next year is a more universally celebrated milestone.  You see, last year was difficult.  It was really, really rough.  I'm not exaggeration or being dramatic when I say there were points in the last year that I questioned whether or not we would make it to year 9, let alone 10.  I think that we had some growing pains as we transitioned from carefree young adults in our twenties to responsible parents in our thirties.  It was necessary for us to figure out how to strike an amicable balance between our family and us, as a couple.

Alas, we made it to year 9, no matter how narrowly.  And I'm feeling confident that we will make it to 10 and beyond.  I can only speak for myself, but I feel like we have a new appreciation for each other and renewed vigor for our marriage.  We are moving into a new phase of our relationship, now that the kids are getting older and there are no more babies on the horizon.  This will give us an opportunity to shift our focus on to our family as well as our needs as individuals and as a couple.  Also working in our favor is that communication has seemed to improve.  I'm feeling pretty positive that our relationship is currently healthier than it has ever been - which gives me hope for our future.

Enough about that.  This year, I was blown away by the preparation involved in our anniversary.  I had mentioned months ago that I'd like to go see the Lion King musical.  Russell not only remembered that I wanted to go, bought tickets, found childcare, but managed to surprise me with all of this!  It was so nice to have an evening to ourselves - especially after being separated for nearly 3 weeks just a few weeks prior.  We started with dinner at M's pub, then off to see The Lion King, and then we grabbed dessert-to-go at the Cheesecake Factory before picking the kids up.  Once the kids were in bed, we devoured our cheesecake -  Mmmmm!  It was a pretty fantastic night!