Five Years of Wedded Bliss

As you may recall, on August 18th Eric and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. It is so hard to believe that five years has passed already, but somehow, it has...and it has been wonderful!

We didn't have much of an elaborate celebration, but all in all it was a wonderful day. We exchanged cards and Eric brought me a beautiful red rose, plus some donuts for breakfast (the true way to my heart, people).

My anniversary rose

When Ellie was up for the day we all went into the city to take advantage of Summer Streets, where they close off Park Avenue to traffic and open it up to pedestrians, cyclists, roller-bladers, etc. They even had bikes and roller-blades to rent, plus periodic rest areas with food and drinks. We just walked with the stroller from about 14th street up to 42nd or so, and then back down.

Eric and Ellie enjoying Summer Streets

Walking on Park Avenue

When we got home, Ellie took a nap and then later that evening we went out for another walk around Hoboken. We stopped for a few minutes at the Hoboken Music Festival at Pier A before continuing on to Biggie's Clam Bar to pick up our seafood dinner, which we ate as a family back at home.

Music Festival at Pier A

Dinner time! (No, Ellie did not share our seafood dinner, but she did join us at the table!)

After dinner we gave Ellie her bath, put her to bed and then started the romantic part of our celebration. We opened up a bottle of champagne we had been given as a gift after Ellie was born and turned on our wedding video. As we watched the video, we also read through old love letters that I had written to Eric during our days as high school sweethearts. The oldest ones were from our first months as a couple in late 1998, and the letters spanned several years, all the way into our college days. It was so cool to go back and read them and think about where we were at those times, both as individuals and as a couple. I'll share more about the letters with you later this week, but it was so sweet (and sometimes a little embarrassing) to read our thoughts about our relationship when we were only 16 years old. And not only were there letters, but there were notes written on Steak 'N Shake order pads (where we both worked as servers in high school), pictures I drew and colored, cards, etc. It was a lot of fun to go back through all that old stuff!

Our champagne and a stack of love letters

Reading one of my letters to Eric

Every now and then we would pause from the letters to watch certain parts of our wedding video and talk about what a wonderful day our wedding day really was. When we reached our first dance, we set the letters aside and danced together in our living room, in the teeny tiny square of open floor space that has not been claimed by some sort of baby toy or device. That was my favorite part of the night. It was so romantic to dance there, surrounded by our daughter's things as she slept in the next room, in a home that is our home, sharing a love that is even stronger than what our teenage selves ever dreamed we would someday share. We are so blessed.

Eric, thank you for five incredible years as husband and wife. Thank you for our beautiful daughter and the great life we share together. I love you!