Outnumbered: Our 10th Anniversary!

Ten years ago, my dad walked my down the aisle of a church and gave me away to be married. On that day, I loved Jon more than I had loved any other person at that time, but its nothing compared to my love for him now. On that day ten years ago when we were babies, we said our vows and walked into our future. We were surrounded by friends and family as we promised forever to each other and then celebrated with dancing. Many of those same family and friends have been the ones who have celebrated our babies' births with us, grieved the loss of our miscarriage, helped us move, and supported our marriage in a thousand different ways (most tangibly by babysitting).

Ten years ago, I had no idea what the future would hold for us. I didn't know we'd usher in our parenthood with a set of baby boys and call our family complete when we had four boys. I had no idea that c-section recoveries and athletic injuries would push us to rely on each other in a much more physical way during different seasons. I didn't know that we'd move, run marathons together, or that I'd have different part-time jobs along the way. Each of those adventures has challenged us and eventually drawn us closer together. It hasn't all been picture perfect, but some of my most cherished memories are the messy ones. The ones where we struggled through when things fell apart. Ten years later, I can honestly say that I love my husband so much more than I ever imagined possible. He has demonstrated his love for me daily in the myriad of things he does for me and the boys. I love our life.

That being said, I love getting away from the daily grind and just being with each other. What better occasion to get away than a milestone anniversary. Six months ago, we saw that our favorite band (Over the Rhine) was playing a concert on their farm outside of Cincinnati on May 25th--our exact anniversary. So late one winter night, we bought the tickets and said we'd figure something out to do with the kids.

My parents came through for us and drove out to stay with our four rowdy boys so that we could take a full weekend away. It is truly amazing how 48 hours without diaper changes, loads of laundry, homework, and a million interruptions seems like a full week's vacation. While we were away, the boys had a blast with Grandma Mary and Pa Lynn--making their own memories with them.

The road trip was a vacation in and of itself. We drive everywhere with our kids, so almost 6 hours in the car without Barney or a Disney movie playing in the background was ah-mazing. It is such a rare occasion that we actually forgot to bring along our own music. Thankfully, we found two cds from our pre-kid years mixed in with the ten veggie tales ones, so we found something to listen to.

When I was telling people that we were going to Cincinnati for our anniversary trip, many gave me strange looks. Cincinnati? Really? Why on earth? Well...for starters...our kids and all the distractions of our daily life aren't there so we can really "get away." Secondly, our favorite band is playing there. Lastly, we've never been there ourselves so why not? One of my favorite things to do with Jon is to explore new places. I still dream of exploring more interesting locations with him like Rome, Cabo, El Salvador...the list could go on and on. But those are places you cannot get to for a two-day weekend, so Cincinnati it was.

I think we were both surprised at how beautiful the city ended up being. Hand in hand we walked across the bridges from our hotel in Kentucky to the city and back. We stumbled across new restaurants, Findlay market and a gorgeous patio garden for lunch. We strolled along the riverwalk and through the streets of the Over the Rhine neighborhood. We had nowhere we had to be. There was no one else we knew there asking or demanding anything from us. We finished our sentences. We lingered over dinner. We slept in. We talked about our past trips, dreams for the future and a million other things that slip our minds on our normal days. We needed this.

After sleeping in late and roaming around the city, we packed up a picnic dinner (thank you Whole Foods) and drove out east to The Farm for the concert. It was a delicious evening. We filled our bellies with yummy treats. As night fell, we sat under a tent and our favorite songs floated over us and hung in the air.

A simple trip to Cincinnati turned into the best anniversary gift I could have imagined and reminded me once again its not important where we are but who we are with in life. I'm so thankful for Jon. Happy Anniversary babe! I can't wait to have more adventures with you. I love you!