eight is enough: two whole decades

2 decades. 20 years. 7,305 days. 175,320 hours. 6 kids. 2 addresses. 8 or 9 vehicles . . . 10 even, maybe. I've lost count. A lot of life has happened since the day we got married. It hasn't all been fun or easy or something we would have chosen, but it has all worked together to bring us to where we are today! Life is hard. Marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. But I don't think it's supposed to be easy! Good, but not easy! To celebrate our 20 years of marriage, we returned to Cape Cod, where we spent our honeymoon 20 years ago, when we were just "kids".

I still do 1996-2016

I'm not a big fan of travel, so it took me a few days to really feel settled and enjoy myself being away from home (and by then it was nearly time to head back), but we did have a wonderful trip and enjoyed our unhurried, calm, quiet time together. I have tagged along for a day or two of a work trip that Kirby was on, and we have "house-swapped" with my parents to celebrate an anniversary or gone away to a nearby town for one night, but this was our first real TRIP together (out of state, kid-free, no work commitments at all) since our honeymoon. It was just what we needed.

Our plane landed in Hartford (after an early-morning red-eye flight and a layover) in the early afternoon. We picked up our rental car and grabbed some lunch. Then we headed to the cemetery where my grandparents headstone is located. It was a beautiful day and I LOVE cemeteries and I hadn't seen the marker for my grandparents since it had been placed in the ground, so that was a great way to start our trip. Then we drove to Boston and walked around downtown for a few hours. We went in the Boston public library, walked through the public gardens, went by Cheers and saw the Boston Marathon finish line. After our quick self-guided tour, we hopped back in our car and headed to the hotel we were staying at that evening. Travel had worn us out, so we had pizza delivered to our room and turned in early.

State Veterans Cemetery, Middletown, Connecticut

Boston Marathon Finish Line

Super cool book art at the Boston Public Library

cool church window in Boston

The next morning we got up, checked out of our hotel and went to church. We had hunted on the internet for a church in the area that we could go to that morning and ended up at one whose service started about 20 minutes after the scheduled time (the first service ran long -- they had a guest speaker . . . this maybe should have been a clue for us!). We finally headed in to the sanctuary and the service got started. It was significantly more charismatic than we are used to, and it made for an interesting morning. We snuck out a bit before the service was done, since we'd already been there nearly two hours, we were hungry and we wanted to get to the ocean! Driving to Cape Cod on a Sunday afternoon is much like driving north in Minnesota on a Sunday afternoon in the summer! You quickly realize that you are going the opposite direction of EVERYONE ELSE and for that you are so very grateful! We had lunch at a hole in the wall local place and then headed to the place we would call home for the next couple days. Ships Knees Inn. My dad's sister and her husband own and run the Inn, so we got a little family time in, too, visiting with them while we were away. We were go grateful for their hospitality and loved seeing how fabulous they are at their jobs! Best innkeepers ever!

Ships Knees Inn (we highly recommend you visit!)

Our shadows on the morning of our 20th anniversary

We took long, slow walks on the beach (it's hard to walk through beach sand any way other than slow!) and around town. We went to a movie (it was a rainy day!). We ate. We walked on the beach some more. We ate some more. We browsed in a quaint little shops. We toured an amazingly beautiful church with stunning architectural detail (again with the rain!). We want to another cemetery. We found a labyrinth a walked through that. (I LOVE labyrinths. Kirby didn't quite see why I love them so much). We saw seals (hundreds of them!). We listened to waves. We ran away laughing as waves crashed against our legs. We watched sunsets and sunrises. We enjoyed our time together and rested and relaxed and then were ready to head back to our state. Our house. Our kiddos.

A pair of seals in the water (hundreds more on a sandbar in the distance)

glorious sunset on Skaket Beach 9.20.16

my love

It was a great trip and one we hope to repeat again. Maybe we won't wait 20 more years next time! I am so thankful for twenty years of faithful, supportive love and encouragement mixed with lots of fun, laughter and heartache. Neither of us are perfect, but we are a pretty darn good pair!