Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary. 11 years! I find it hard to believe it's been that long. I don't feel all that different. I don't feel 11 years older. And yet life is certainly different than it was 11 years ago.

11 years ago... we stayed up all night for no good reason... We went grocery shopping at 2 a.m. just to avoid crowded aisles and long check-out lines... We went out to eat on the spur of the moment - no pre-planning and babysitter finding or kid wrangling required... We slept in until noon on weekends... We took trips where we only packed a single duffle bag... We were the only ones sleeping in our bed... The only messes in our house were the ones we made. Frankly, life was a lot easier.

BUT... now we have 4 wonderful children to show for 11 years of marriage. And while we don't stay up all night (on purpose) anymore because the kids have us too exhausted to stay up past 10 or 11... And shopping at 2 a.m. means we've run out of diapers and it's an emergency... And it's a miraculous day when we sleep in at all... And going out for dinner takes hours of planning and schedule shifting... And going on a road trip requires a week of packing... And never a night goes by that someone (or several someones) doesn't climb into bed with us... And my house hasn't been truly clean since about 2005... I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love my husband and my kids and my life.

We celebrated a little early this year (because of that whole babysitter and work schedules thing I mentioned before). We decided years ago not to give each other gifts for our anniversary. Instead, we would use the money we would have spent and splurge on a really nice dinner out. This year we went to Bastien's restaurant in Denver. It was incredible! I had steak and lobster... so good. And Aaron had some sort of small steaks on toasted bread with asparagus and shrimp and bernaise sauce... also very good (he said) and beautiful. The dishes were so pretty I had to take a picture before we could eat. :)

Add in a relaxing evening without the kids where we were able to only worry about feeding ourselves and could actually take time to talk to each other... it was a very nice way to celebrate. (Especially since we knew the kids were quite happy without us. They love their babysitter Sarah so much that they often tell us to leave again when we get home after an evening out. They'd rather have Sarah than us anytime!)

Happy anniversary, honey. My vote is to keep this up for at least 11 more years!