Celebrating 20 Years

So we started here, some twenty years ago, one of the real successes of our church's Single Adult social program. This was the photo we sent out in our wedding invitations.

Dave's parents are on the left, mine on the right, and our family in the middle. What a journey we started, all of us, all together, the parents flanking us, the wedding covenants in the temple giving us a sure start and we pushed on into the newness of it all: Dave, me, Chad, Matthew (on his tiptoes so he could be taller than Chad), Barbara (one of my junior bridesmaids that day) and Peter, who held my hand in every photo but one. And in that one, he's scowling fiercely.

We've talked about our marriage a lot this past week--I guess I should say I've brought it up a lot on our walks--and we shake our heads at our dumb luck at having made this enterprise get off the runway and sail into the air.

We're thicker through the middle, one of us is thinner through the hairline, we both have more wrinkles, and sag a little more through the shoulders, but the children have grown and married and have brought a new generation for us to love in our eight grandchildren.

To provide evidence that we're celebrating our twentieth, I'll be at an orientation meeting where I teach and Dave will be honing his talk to give next week at a conference. Romance? We've got it. In fact we've postponed celebrating our Big Day until next week, when he'll take me out to dinner in one of my favorite places: Pienza, Italy. I'll splurge and order the Panna Cotta (we'll share) and then we'll walk along the city wall, looking over in the countryside. Maybe we'll hold hands, occasionally I'll steal a kiss from my handsome fellow by my side, and then, like any good middle-aged couple, we'll turn in by 10 p.m.

Happy Twentieth Anniversary, Dave. I love you.