A Decade Later...

We've been having a stand-off, I think, to see who would write about this. Ok, I'll do it!

David and I had our 10th wedding anniversary last Tuesday, August 21st. It was the day after David got back from Utah. (absence, does make the heart grow fonder!)

Seriously, what the heck did we do with 10 years? Well, for starters:

*David spent, um, 7 of them in school.
*I spent 1 in school and 6 more teaching high school.
*David started his career in materials research at MIT Lincoln Lab.
*We spent 1.5 years in a rented apartment in downtown SLC, 6 years in a house we bought in South Salt Lake, and the last 2.5 years in a house we bought in Massachusetts. (does that add up to 10?)
*We got our dog, Velvet upon moving into our first house and our second dog, Shadow the next year.
*We have not traveled the world together, but we honeymooned in exotic Stanley, Idaho (seriously - exotic!), we have made road-trips to Southern Utah, Vegas, Lander, Wyoming, and Denver from Utah and a road-trip to Pittsburgh from Massachusetts. We flew to DC for a friend's wedding and to spend some time with my sister in Virginia. We have flown back and forth from Utah to Massachusetts. I spent July of 2001 in Kenya, and David has traveled on business here and there. Ok - really - we haven't really gone "anywhere". Maybe we'll save our world travel log for our Golden Anniversary and have finally made a trip to Brazil and to Europe. Who wants to travel these days anyway? (and, seriously, traveling with tiny kids is for the birds.)
*We have given up and taken up our favorite sports a number of times. I gave up my horse, but now work at a riding stable. David has given up back-packing (for now), but has taken up road cycling and commuting to work by bike.
*We have reproduced and now have 2 B-E-A-UTIFUL children. Grace is 4 and Harriet is 1. They are our lives now.

Our 10 year celebration started as we woke up in bed - together - separated by our 2 munchkins. After sleeping by himself in King size hotel bed for 2 weeks, 1/4 of a queen bed didn't quite feel the same for David, but he said that he would rather sleep with us than without us.

Since Grace was "in" on our gifts, we exchanged them in bed with the kids. Normally, we really don't do extravagant anniversary presents, but we decided that 10 years together deserved something a little extra special so we spent a little cash... David gave me a strand of salt-water pearls with matching earrings. He has promised me pearls the whole time we've been married, so that was a really nice surprise. I gave him a new watch. It's one of those new Citizen Eco-drive things. The face is a solar panel, so it doesn't have a battery and it's super thin and pretty cool. He has never had a really nice dress watch (I know - he would probably rather have the latest GPS sport watch), but now he can dress up in his suit and have a watch to wear with it.

David took a day off from work and so did I! He stayed home with the kids for the morning while I went to a spa and had a massage. VERY NICE. Then, I took Grace shopping for the afternoon. I know - doesn't sound too romantic yet, but after almost 3 weeks without any time to myself, it was a fantastic treat and after 3 weeks without the kids, he had a good time too.

For, let's see, maybe the 4th time since we moved here, we left the kids with a non-family member, our good friend Rita, and went OUT! We dressed up, put our new jewelry on, and went to dinner at our favorite local place, Scupper Jack's for a filet mignon dinner. What a great end to a fantastic day!

Oh - and sorry, no one took a picture of us all dolled up. Too bad too - we aren't too hard on the eyes, yet! That's ok we were probably still cuter when we got married. When I get a minute, I'll dig up a wedding picture and post it.

Well babe, Happy Anniversary! Love you! Add to this if you want :-)