12th Anniversary: An Even Dozen

Denisa and I have officially made it to the big 1-2. Twelve years ago right about now, we were driving down to Manti, Utah, where we were married in a ceremony that had no one else present. Planned elopement. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Of those 12 years, we’ve lived in Maine for 5.5 of them, which means that sometime in the next year, we’ll have been in Maine for the majority of our marriage. That’s pretty exciting. We’ve certainly already lived in this house longer than we’ve lived anywhere else.

Are we doing anything special today to celebrate? Um . . . we just had a baby a week or so ago, so . . . no. Not really. So far I cleaned out the garage with my mom, we’ve worked on digging ditches some more, Denisa’s fed the baby a few times.

The glamorous life of the parents of a newborn.

But really, that pretty much sums up why we got married. We didn’t get married to go do fabulous things in far off places (although we’ve been able to do that some of the time). We got married to start a family together. To enjoy each other’s company over the years, because we found we liked each other more than we liked other people. (I have no idea what’s wrong with Denisa.) So really. I can’t think of many ways that would be better to celebrate our anniversary than by welcoming a new baby to the fam.

My parents divorced when I was seven. One of the things that was most important to me when I was thinking about getting married was that I wanted to be sure I’d give my children a good strong marriage to come in to. I was really doubtful that I’d ever be able to do that, to be honest. How would I know the girl I married would actually work out? Couldn’t we change over the years? What if I made the wrong choice?

On the first date with Denisa, all those doubts evaporated. It was as easy as playing the old Sesame Street game: One of These Things is Not Like the Others.

I know it doesn’t work like that for everyone, but it worked like that for me, and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Anyway–time for blogging is over. Gotta go help bathe the baby. Happy anniversary, Denisa!