The Adventure Continues

I was fortunate enough 16 years ago yesterday to marry the right man. And that makes the fact we did a very poor job celebrating our anniversary this year, just fine by me. To celebrate 16 years of marital bliss we had dinner with the kids and watched our wedding video. I don't think we had seen that video in at least 10 years and it was a blast to watch it.

Most obviously, it was fun to see all the people we have lost since our wedding come to life. Three of our grandparents, my brother and an Aunt were all in the video, but are no longer with us. Through the video, we were able to introduce La Nina to all these people. For the first time, she really saw that she had two Uncle Mike's: there is a scene in the video when they are standing next to each other. We showed her that her big girl name comes from someone else: she saw Gram walking into the church. We showed her where Maggie's big girl name came from too: We have a great shot of Grams waiting for the ceremony to begin. I think she loved seeing me in my wedding dress and it was fun telling her when she will wear a white dress someday or a red dress if she chooses the traditional Chinese wedding attire.

It was also fun to see our friends and family so much younger, with so much less life experience. We saw people with ex-spouses, kids now in college as pre-schoolers, friends just having fun during a very care-free time in our life. We saw wild dancing, a beer shimmy, and a ball and chain spotlight dance. We saw a few things I am sure others would like to forget, but it was so fun to remember. We were able to challenge each other's memories of the event with trivia...and for the record, I won.

So, while we didn't take a trip, go out to a fancy dinner or even have much time alone yesterday where we were both conscious, we did stroll hand in hand down memory lane with our girls in tow, and had a delightful time doing it.

And to that dear Spouse of mine: The adventure continues and gets better all the time.