25 Years of Marriage

25 Wonderful Years of Marriage

25 years ago, August 27th, 1988 my sweetheart and I were married.  It was a warm summer day.  Both of our families and many guests were present.  It was a real special time.  For our honeymoon, we drove out to the Maine coast.  It probably wasn't a trip like you're thinking.  We spent our second night at Niagra Falls.  I had always wanted to see the falls at night.  We left there and got up every morning and decided where we were going that day.  (Remember, this was in the days before the internet and cell phones)  We used the Mobile travel guides.  We never travelled on highways and we only travelled 3 hours or less.  We got to see many things.  We made Rome 'fore six o' clock.  We visited the Finger Lakes, canoed on Lake Placid and stopped in Vermont and New Hampshire.  We spent a week driving out to Maine.

We stopped at the L.L. Beane outlet store.  We had lobster for dinner. Spent one night on the coast and then turned around and headed home.  Our trip home was a little quicker, but we did take the time to spend a day at the Baseball Hall of Fame, We did camp out in a tent two nights.  We just relaxed and had a nice trip.  We got back to Cleveland packed up our wedding gifts and drove to Chicago.
I was already over a week late for the start of school.

Our first apartment was a 2 bedroom flat in a three story walk-up.  It was very nice, although very short on furniture.  We found 2 chairs on the tree lawn, We bought a dresser at a garage sale.  After a couple weeks we got a mattress, so we know longer had to sleep on the living room floor.  We paid $500 a month for rent.  Prices were pretty expensive in that area of Chicago.  My DH got a job working with a fellow who did remodeling.  He made $8/hour but only got about 25 hours per week of work.  Life was much simpler then.  Hard to believe that all this happened 25 years ago.

Now, 25 years later, 6 children and 3 houses later.  We are celebrating God's goodness to us.  We have been blessed so richly.  We have grown together as a couple and in the Lord.  It is worth celebrating!  We had thought about taking a trip or cruise together.  Instead, we took a trip out West in April to celebrate our birthdays.  We thought about going out to a special restaurant or something else.

But we ended up staying home and celebrating with our family.   We decided that buying a farm would be plenty of celebration.  We are only waiting for the final loan underwriting to go through and then we can close the deal.  That should happen in the next day or two.  Our children have become really great cooks.  Michelle took over the menu and she and Elizabeth worked together putting together a fantastic meal.  We dug out some filet mignon from the freezer (we buy a steer every fall and save the steaks for special occasions) picked some beans from the garden, and had some special mashed potatoes.  There were fresh sliced tomatoes from the garden with feta cheese.  Everything was so yummy!

They ended the meal with two pies.  One peach and one apple with homemade ice cream.  Now you understand why we decided that home was better than even a fancy restaurant.

Life is going by so fast.  It is hard to believe that our eldest is 22 and the youngest is 8.  So much has happened, most of it good. We are hoping for at least another 25 years together and many grandchildren!