10th Anniversary!

That was Mark & I ten years ago. We were married in the Seattle Temple the day after Thanksgiving 2001. (At the time I thought it was a great choice of date. I also thought I was getting "old" and wanted to make sure we picked a date before my December birthday. So silly.)
It's funny how wedding anniversary's are a big deal, especially on round numbers, but how that doesn't reflect real life very accurately. What I mean is, firstly, most people (us included) have a relationship for a significant amount of time before the wedding. And also that "big" anniversary's don't necessarily occur during big apexes in the relationship -- or, less dramatic, they don't always coincide with the most opportune time to make as big a deal of it as the societal romantic notion encourages. Overly philosophical? Well, I'm probably just justifying our somewhat modest celebration of our first decade of marriage.

We already went on a long, wonderful, kid-less vacation earlier this year so it didn't seem needed nor feasible to plan some second honeymoon kind of thing for our anni. Instead we just had two dates. One, on our actual anniversary, was a quickly thrown together dinner-and-a-movie plan. We ate local Mexican, followed by a little errand at Staples, and then drove to see a movie in Nampa. Except I got the show times all wrong and the only thing left to see was the latest Twilight movie -- which I'd sworn to never watch. Well, that will teach me to swear! At least it had a wedding (and Brazil!) in it...
We had a more awesome date planned for a week later, so I wasn't bothered at all about the semi-failure of the first date. We were picked up by our good friends the McCammons who joined us for the evening's fun - and helped me grab a quick snapshot.

Here we are December 3, 2011. We probably do look ten years older, though not so old as we are. And funny thing is I could care less!
Anyway, this time we had dinner reservations at Barbacoa, about which we'd heard rave reviews. It was a sophisticated "experience" kind of place but not a theme restaurant. (Check the link if you really want to know). We were excited to try some new cuisine, so I got one of the specials: pheasant! Mark got some kind of kabobs that had a really unique presentation. We all split a yummy guacamole appetizer and were totally stuffed when we were through.
The crowds from a Boise State football game were just thronging out of the stadium and jamming the streets as we tried to make it the mere 3 miles or so to the Morrison Center for the main event: Brian Regan. He was hilarious, as was his brother (the opening comedian). If you haven't seen him before, Regan has two Comedy Central specials available on Netflix streaming - not to mention all the Letterman appearances and YouTube clips.
After laughing so hard our cheeks hurt -- kind of like they did after smiling for pictures the entire day of our wedding -- we went to TGIFridays and grabbed some desert. Not comparable to a romantic tropical getaway, but a fabulous date nonetheless. And, if you know me, I'll have that getaway or something better whenever we can fit it in. Right now I'm content knowing the things that are truly a "big deal" are the stuff of every day: faith, trust, our four awesome sons, having someone who helps you and supports you, who respects and loves you. Here's to making those things even better over the next 10 years, and counting!