Our vows

This year marks our tenth year of marriage.  That day you were dressed in black and me in white as you held my hands fumbling for my ring you spoke our promise to each other with such confidence.  As I am sitting here now reading our vows and flipping through photos I am impressed by how well you live out these words.  I am humbled and honored by it. Thank you.

My vows all those years ago to you, my dear Strong Man:

Do you, Shandy, take Charlie, to be your husband?

To give your hand, your heart, and your promise that your love will always be a safe haven for him.

To give in the presence of God and these witnesses your sacred promise to be his in times of plenty and in times of want, in times of sickness and in times of health, in times of joy and in times of sorrow, in times of failure and in times of triumph.

Do you promise to love without reservation, to respect him, to care for him and to protect him, to comfort him in times of distress, to encourage him, to laugh with him, and to cry with him, to grow with him in mind and spirit, and to cherish him for all eternity?

We tied the unity braid, a symbol that our marriage was three part.  First centered on Jesus, our foundation weaving ourselves in making the braid strong, complete, a new thing.

With this ring I pledge my faith and trust.  Receive it as a symbol of our endless union and our unbroken love. 

I love you more now then I did that day.  While I meant every word of it ten years ago I am more confident in our promise to each other today.  We have walked the easy and we have walked the hard and we have conquered them both.  You are my best friend.  I look forward to the next ten years with you.  Then to the ten after that and again the ten after that.  I dream about when we celebrate our 50th together.  You'll be completely bald and my hair will have only known the color grey for the thirty years before and our hearts will beat as one, and these promises will still be as steadfast as they were in 2006.

I love you.  Thank you for asking.

Happy Anniversary! (I am hijacking your blog!)

It seems like you've been asking me (Strong Man, as you call me here) to hijack your blog for months if not years.  Our anniversary seemed like a good opportunity to take the time to do just that.

I will admit that one of the reasons I haven't done this, is because you have such an amazing way of capturing the heart of what happens in our live, be it big or small, and I am intimidated because I just don't.  I love reading Shanbrosia and not just remembering what we did, And it is bigger than simply seeing what you enjoyed about something, but as I read, more often than not I see how an event affected you, and that is priceless!

So I wanted to hit the highlights of our 8th Anniversary, and hopefully let you know how it affected me.

Our celebration was to take place the night before our Anniversary.  Typically December is such a crazy month that a big getaway on December 9th is impractical, if not almost impossible, and we had escaped on the anniversary of our engagement this year.  So our "actual" anniversary was supposed to be more like a regular date night.  But I was so excited that I booked us a hotel room and got my mom to watch the kids overnight.  And I'm glad I did.

Our day started out less than amazing.  I had my first 'real' doctor's appointment (ie not walk in care) of our marriage at 8:00AM which we followed up with a 9:00AM meeting with someone who was trying to sign us up for Obamacare.  This was of course after you had worked until 11:30 or so the night before, and because of my appointment you had to single-handedly get the kids up and out the door, so that they could sit through the hour and a half meeting that ended with us basically finding out that we can't afford insurance and can't get help because your company offers terrible insurance plans...  Oh and during the lovely little meeting you kept getting text messages from work telling you all the little things that were going wrong.

By the time it was over your stress level was high, and the boys and I thought that if you got shocked by static one more time, it might provide the spark that made you explode.  Thankfully that didn't happen.  We managed to get lunch, get you a shower, and get you to your chiropractor's appointment.  Then we got the boys dropped of and our adventure began.

We started by shopping. As a bit of an anniversary gift, after hearing your many complaints that you don't have clothes that make you feel pretty, I told you that you could buy clothes anywhere you wanted, but the super practical woman that you are insisted on shopping at old navy.  You found clothes that made you feel beautiful and didn't break that bank. (seriously 60 bucks and that included a winter coat.  You're a bargain hunting rockstar!)

As we drove we had deep conversation.  The kind that made me fall in love with you.  We talked about how we can be more of who we were Created to be, and do more of what we were Created to do.  We talked about the people we love, and how to love them better.  It was fantastic.

When we got to the hotel we found out that I had booked the room for the wrong night.  But thankfully that we able to switch it and we got the same room I had booked.  We also found out that there might be a storm that would keep us trapped at the hotel.  It got our hopes up, maybe a little too much, because the storm didn't come as promised.  Once in the room, you got your new clothes on and we headed out to our new favorite spot in Belfast, Darby's.  We reminisced about the last 8 years, and throughout the night we had "8 years ago today" conversations.

Back at the hotel we considered a dip in the pool until we realized that the chair in our room was a massage chair, and all thoughts of swimming went out the window.  We watched HGTV, took turns in the chair having our muscle tensions melted away, and were sound asleep by 9:00PM.  WE ARE SUCH AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE!  We both loved it.  Our idea of a romantic getaway is dinner and falling asleep 3 hours earlier that normal...

This morning you said you had a gift for me, but you were afraid I wouldn't like it.  I practically had to promise not to laugh.  Once you gave it to me I had no desire to laugh at all.  You handed me a leather-bound journal, and told me that you bought it so that we can leave each other notes during these busy days.  I was my favorite part of the weekend.  HONESTLY.  I love the idea.  I couldn't ask for a better gift or a better person to spend life with!

I hope you'll take the time to add pictures to this.  Like the one of me in the chair, or the selfie we took on the balcony, and the picture of the street lights in Belfast.  I love your eye with the camera . It's another favorite thing about your blog.

I hope you know, from this weekend how much I love you.  How you really are my world.

I am so thankful for the last 8 years, and that we love each other more than we dreamed possible that exciting day 8 years ago.

ILYMED

Your Strong Man