Happy Anniversary

Today is our 15th wedding anniversary. It's been a wonderful journey. We've been truly blessed to have such a great life, relationship and family with the addition of Derek and Adam. But, we can't believe how fast it's gone by. When Helen gets melancholy about how quickly it's going, I tell her to look at the bright side - we're that much closer to retirement.

Helen's parents were gracious enough to volunteer to watch the boys for a couple days while Helen and I go to Brasstown Valley. This is our first trip alone since the boys were born. We're not sure that we'll know how to act.

We wanted to go somewhere reasonably close and looked into a number of places (The Grove Park Inn, The Cloister, The Ritz-Carlton Lodge), but just couldn't pull the trigger on any of them. Those places seemed a little out of our league. Brasstown Valley seemed nice, but not too intimidating for people like us who don't really have the right clothes and don't know anything about wine.

Usually, Helen and I don't buy each other gifts, but I do try to get her nice things for significant anniversaries (and new babies -although I don't think there's any more of those in our future). I appreciate the fact that she's reasonable about gift giving and doesn't expect something on every Hallmark manufactured holiday. I figure I can put some effort into it if it's only every 5 years or so. This year I got Helen a new watch. She had mentioned a few times over the past couple years that she really liked this watch, but couldn't believe that her practical husband actually remembered her references and was willing to purchase it.