Thirteen years of us
Per usual, life has felt rather full. Amongst that fullness, nn Mid-August, Nicholas and I celebrated thirteen years of marriage!
Between our eventful two trips to visit my sister- and brother-in-law, Katelyn and Devin, we had a little date afternoon to celebrate our wedding anniversary. My father-in-law, Bob and his fiancée, Kate watched the boys while Nicholas and I packed a picnic lunch and headed to Indiana Dunes National Park.
We hopped in the car, a quiet jazz playlist playing, and made a surprise (to Nicholas!) stop at a local health food store to pick out a few treats, including our favorite mocktail to save for later, and then carried on to the Chellberg Farm and Bailey Homestead part of the park. After enjoying our lunches, we enjoyed a few miles of hiking at a faster pace than our typical family hike and lots of conversation along the way. We enjoyed some wild blackberries along the trail and saw the first few glimpses of fall's yellow leaves.
A longer trail we chose was rather overgrown, but we persevered and made a mental note to scrub our legs when we got home because there was plenty of cozying up with poison ivy. On the last stretch of trail, we held hands and I just really enjoyed it.
We headed home to see our boys and enjoy homemade cinnamon rolls and dinner and the boys stayed outside late, extremely busy doing the important work of washing rocks and transferring muddy water between bowls, of course.
As I look back to last year's anniversary post, I see some similarities that month: anniversary hike, navigating severe storms and power outages, and celebrating with homemade cinnamon rolls, ha.
In lieu of giving each other gifts, we treated ourselves to a pizza steel to further enhance our Friday night homemade pizza night and so far, it's been amazing. The crust bakes so well.
A few days after our actual anniversary (right after we had power restored to our house) we went for a spontaneous evening beach trip, as a family. The boys busied themselves with digging the sand and searching for treasures. It was incredibly windy and almost chilly. We ate sandwiches and chips and watched the sky turn pink with wispy clouds and I felt abundantly overwhelmed by how beautiful our life is.
Every year around our anniversary, I write a little love letter to Nicholas. This past year brought home projects, some overwhelming health challenges for our family, homeschool days, family hikes, lots of fika, and 365 days of figuring it all out together.
As I do every year around this time, I like to write a list of some of my favorite things about our life together right now:
- Our favorite meals as of late include sausage risotto, grass-fed burgers on homemade sourdough buns, homemade dill pickles, eggs (always), sourdough pancakes with vanilla and cinnamon, and grilled chicken thighs with veggies.
- Our favorite coffee is coffee made at home, with the hand grinder and pour over setup that he gave me for my birthday last September. We are still drinking Purity coffee and loving it. He drinks his black and I have mine with half and half, and we both add collagen.
- The sound of all three boys saying, "Daddy!" or "Mommy!" and running towards us first thing in the morning/after getting home from an errand/at the end of a workday. Literally what we dreamed of before we had kids. And seeing a 1.5 year-old-run towards you with outstretched arms, coming in for a hug? The absolute best.
- I text him every time he has a Chicago work day to make sure he got his morning coffee.
- Every Friday night is (homemade) pizza night. Most weeks, we make the pizza together and we have gradually figured out our ideal recipe and method (from dough to toppings). It is so good. Long-fermented sourdough, not surprisingly.
After thirteen years of marriage, and sixteen(!) spent together, I love the ease and comfort in our marriage. We have a rhythm and routine in our home that serves and loves each other well. He is a man of integrity and I can always trust that he will share his real opinion with me, and that he will prompt me to think deeply about things before forming a knee-jerk reaction to them. And he is so appreciative of the work I do to care for our boys and our home.
Nicholas, I love that all these years later, I still get to pack your lunches and make you coffee in the morning, wash and fold your clothes (even if sometimes a day or two passes between washing and folding, ahem). All these little to-dos of marriage and motherhood are little gifts and reminders of the wonderful burden of nurturing our family.
Nicholas, thank you for serving and working so hard for your family. For long Chicago commute days. For meticulously planning, implementing, and completing house projects. For your attitude and mantra of "See a problem, fix a problem." Thank you for continually being the "fun parent," whether that's reading to the boys, making origami or Legos together, wrestling in the grass, or admiring tree frogs and toads, or yet more rocks the boys found.
Holding your hand still makes my heart flutter a bit, and I get teary-eyed looking at our three beautiful boys, the family we hoped and prayed for, in a home we adore. I thank God that you are my husband, and the best companion in life. Thank you for loving me so well. I am honored to be your wife.
Forever yours,
Andrea
And here are just a few of my favorite pictures of us from the last year of our marriage, most of which feature our family of five, since our little companion guys are almost always accompanying us:
P.S.— if you're curious, here are my previous anniversary posts and our love story (the beginning of it, anyway; our story is ongoing, of course!) in two parts: