Ten Years

Yesterday, Tony and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary.  And by celebrated I mean that we went out on a date to a nice restaurant...alone...and we actually were able to taste and enjoy the food and atmosphere!  At the end of the meal, the wait staff kept asking us if everything was okay.  It occurred to me that we were just sitting there quietly taking it all in, and it must have appeared that we were perhaps disgruntled about something.  "No," I explained, "we have three small children..."  Enough said.  They all understood.  We're not used to all the peace and quiet and adult conversations going on about us...or the 8:00 dinner reservations - that's awfully late to be eating dinner when you've been up since 5:30 a.m. working and taking care of the little ones! 

Ten years, three houses, three cars, two trucks, one minivan, four cats, three children, numerous fun trips, a few tears, and countless happy memories later, and I'm certain I married the right person.  I love you ten times more today than I did on the day we were wed, Tony.  You're the man I want my sons to become and the type of man I want my daughter to marry.  Thank you for your selfless love and all you do for us.  Here's to the next ten (and twenty and thirty...)!

Cheeseburger in Paradise

"I like mine with lettuce and tomato
Heinz 57 and french fried potatoes
Big kosher pickle and a cold draught beer
Well, good god Almighty which way do I steer..."

- Jimmy Buffett, "Cheeseburger in Paradise"

To the nearest fast food restaurant parking lot.  That's where you'll find us these days when we go "out to eat."  Actually getting out of the van is too much work with two infants and an energetic almost-three-year-old.  So we go through the drive-thru and park the van while we enjoy our cheeseburgers in paradise. I've eaten more Wendy's hamburgers in our minivan than I would like to admit, but that's ok...I'd sacrifice real restaurant food in order to have fun with these cuties any day:

 Maybe next time we should just bring our cheeseburgers outside for a picnic.

 The grandparents will also come over and let us really go out every now and then.

And when all my little cheeseburgers are sleeping in their beds, I can go out on our back deck and work off some of those cheeseburgers and unwind next to the fragrant jasmine.  And reflect on how beautiful our life is.  It really is paradise.

"For a cheeseburger in paradise
Makin' the best of every virtue and vice.
Worth every damn bit of sacrifice
To get a cheeseburger in paradise;
To be a cheeseburger in paradise.
I'm just a cheeseburger in paradise."