Happy Anniversary, Sweetie

Life isn't a piece of cake...

Today is my 28th wedding anniversary! (To read our Falling in Love story, click here.) We celebrated a little last night by going out to dinner and spending a little time together. My sweetie took Thursday off just for me, so we have a 4-day weekend. We tried a new place called Wing Nutz. It probably wasn’t the best choice for us since my sweetie doesn’t like extra spicy, but I had a coupon…
We left the house about 9:00, and by the time we got there, it was pretty quiet. Those that were still watching the football game on the big screen were on their second or third pitcher of beer, so they weren’t paying any attention to us. We had lots of time to reminisce about anniversaries from the past while we picked at our food.

We have never been big on anniversary gifts, but even during the lean times we have managed to spend the day together and go out for dinner. You all know how cheap I am, so we almost always use a buy one get one free meal coupon. We bought our first Happenings book when we had been married for about 5 years. That's when my sweetie found a BOGO coupon in there for the Red Lion Hotel eating establishment. We were still so young. I was 23 and he was barely 25. We had never been to such a nice (or expensive) place. We wore our finest clothes and he even remembered to open the door for me. We ate Pork Medallions…they were so tasty! And then they cooked some kind of fancy dessert with flames right at our table. I about choked when I saw the bill. Even at half price, it was our entertainment budget for about three months!


Other anniversaries came and went, but few were as memorable as that one. For a while we got involved in the Dine-o-Round. That was even better than a coupon because we could choose any of the restaurants that were participating and get a meal for a set price. We ate at one beautiful roof-top place downtown. That’s when I learned that true Key Lime Pie is not actually green.

A few years ago we discovered a Japanese place tucked away in a strip mall that makes the best tempura vegetables! It’s still one of our favorite places.

When we had our 24th anniversary we decided that we wanted to something big and exciting for our 25th. We started planning for a trip together…maybe Hawaii. It never happened. Curly was due September 7 and even though he was born almost a month early, we couldn’t really leave our tiny babe with someone else.

Life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect. Sometimes we get Wing Nutz and sometimes we get the Red Lion. It’s our job to make the best of wherever we end up. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. Together. Happy 28th Sweetie, looking forward to at least 28 more. I love you.