Seven years ago we said our vows beneath the Aspen trees in Nederland, Colorado. There we danced under sparkling lights with dirt between our toes, surrounded by our closest friends and family, on a beautiful mountain-side. We couldn’t have thought or imagined how good and sweet life would be in the years ahead, but we clung to hope and prayed.
After seven years, three moves, two babies, one house, five chickens, three businesses and endless dreams, we celebrated our marriage this past weekend. It was a few days late, but my parents planned fun things to do with the kids for an entire day so we could have a date day.
Our date began with grabbing coffee and walking around a cute downtown area — popping into boutiques and peeking inside windows of upcoming restaurants and other shops, and our day ended with dinner in Milwaukee at a restaurant on the water. Sandwiched between coffee and dinner, we packed a picnic lunch like we did while we were dating and newly married, Alexander surprised me with a beautiful ring and we stopped at an Italian place for some gelato. It was simple and perfect.
A few anniversaries ago I gave Alexander a “dream journal” where ever-so-often we write down dreams we have and want to work towards. We also note special dates, so I wrote down how we celebrated this years’ anniversary, where we’re currently at in our life together, and words that have marked the last seven years: gratitude, blessing and teamwork. We both are visionary, but it honestly was hard for us to look into the next seven years of marriage — we know how much is out of our control, what is possible, how much can change — the number of kids we’ll have by then, other businesses we’d start and where we would be living.
Every year on our anniversary, we read our vows to one another. And every year, I’m shocked as tears fill my eyes. Dismayed at the fact that every promise I said that day has been tested and I’ve failed at every one of them. Even before we read our vows Alexander led with words filled with wisdom and grace, he mentioned how our vows are suppose to be the perfection of the marriage we desire in order to glorify Christ, they should be hard to keep and we should strive to keep them. Reading our vows, we saw our faults and failures, but there was truly nothing but grace and gratitude between us.
Our date day was again, simple yet perfect, a day with just us being us — not as mama and daddy or entrepreneurs or any other title, just us, as husband and wife.