Friday, February 5, 2010

A Decade After "I Do"

I'm all about cheesy titles. ;-)

That's right, today marks ten full years of marriage around here. That's so wild!!! This is what I woke up to this morning...




Okay, so that's not really true. When I got up this morning there were still sewing machines and equipment strewn all over the table. I had hemmed the pants for James' new suit last night and still had some sleeves to shorten on another dress for Katie. So when I got up this morning, I fixed her sleeves so I could get the house cleaned up again and the beautiful flowers displayed on the table instead of the stove. ;-)

This is the inside of the card from the kids.



Got a few other things done around the house this morning, then had devotions and headed into town for our anniversary lunch (with the kids, of course) at the Olive Garden. It was soooooo good. :-) Since it was a special occasion we decided to splurge and get an appetizer. Don't try the smoked mozzarella fonduta. It was so "smokey" you couldn't even taste the cheese. Or the bread. Ha! Oh, well. The waiter was kind enough to take it off our ticket, so we learned what not to order and it didn't even cost us. Aside from that venture, the meal was fantastic. :-)

We left the restaurant and headed to the airport to drop James off. That's right, we decided to celebrate our 10th Anniversary by putting James on a plane and sending him away. Ha! Okay, so that wasn't exactly the plan. This just happens to be the big month for District Conventions around here--three of them this month. We knew they would be during our Anniversary (and the kids' birthday next week), but when we made the schedule we were really hoping that we'd ALL be going on these trips and would be able to be together. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way this year! That's okay--God knows best. James flew to Arizona for the Convention over there this weekend (praying they have a GREAT one!) and will be back on Monday.

The kids and I came home and got busy on school. And, as is customary when James is away (which we seem to be experiencing a lot more than usual of late! Ha!), we have a pizza party. We played a game earlier, then put the soda fountain in use for the first time in ages. An orange-cherry soda for Sam, a cherry-vanilla coke for Kate, and a raspberry-cherry coke (?!) for Joe. I went with a cherry coke this time. :-)

Anyway, since I can't BE with my husband for our anniversary, I thought I'd at least post some pictures of the big day. :-) The quality is quite poor, of course (we don't have a scanner so these are actually pictures of my pictures!), but it's the best I can do. :-)

I LOVED that bouquet. And the way it smelled. :-)

The girls...
The guys trying to keep James OUT of the church before the ceremony...
And the girls trying to keep me IN.
James getting the big brother look from Jon...
Ummm... The photographer (or somebody???) said to swoon. I've never been a very good swooner. Ha!
Not sure how this happened. I'm pretty sure James wouldn't do this sort of thing now. Of course, the girls would scatter quickly if he tried! He and I have both put on a few pounds since then, you know. ;-)
With Mom & Dad


The whole party!

You know... looking back, I wonder about a lot of the traditional things people do at weddings. Why in the world do we do them?! Feeding each other cake (much less the rather bad start to marriage by cramming it down one another's throats)--where did that come from?! Probably some Pagan thing. Ha! If Katie gets to marrying age before the rapture I hope we can just do what she wants to do instead of what everybody else has done for the past century! Still... I think I won the cake cramming thing.

Here we are standing in line waiting to talk to all of the people. I love that part. :-)
And here we are at an auto place in Canon City, after driving all the way down that winding mountain road with the horn blaring every time James tapped on the breaks. The car trasher guys had tried to achieve that at the past several weddings, but finally pulled it off this time.
I remember we were stuck behind a little old couple coming down the canyon road. We couldn't pass them but they were driving pretty slow, so we kept HONKING at them (to keep from crashing into them) for miles and miles. Ha! "What jerks!!!," I'm sure they were thinking.

I had Katie take a picture of James and I together at the airport today, but apparently the sun was shining pretty directly into the camera lens. Besides, looking at the picture seems to indicate that the years haven't been very kind to us. Ha! I think we can do better than that on another day. ;-)

And one last picture. My goal was to hold the flowers so you could see how huge the arrangement actually is. Unfortunately, my ape arms make it appear as if it's no big deal to hold them down low enough to see over... Ha! Oh, well. :-)

10 comments:

Vicki Smith said...

What a GREAT post! I had fun looking back at your wedding pictures. You actually don't look different, but James . . .??? I'll just say, he's a lot more man than he used to be! HA!
It's hard to choose a favorite picture. I like the last one, with the Totino's pizza boxes in the background. :-) But my REAL favorite has to probably be the one with you guys behind the the bridal boquet and the expressions of your wedding party as they're looking on. Jon looks pretty interested in the goings-on, and Emilee and Mandie's expressions are priceless! Melvin is really enjoying it, and Tammy looks like she's puckering for you--just like a mom opens her own mouth every time she puts the spoon in the baby's mouth, you know? LOL!

EmileeAnn said...

Oh my goodness...I had forgotten that Melvin was in your wedding! In the picture where the guys are trying to hold James back I kept thinking that looked like Melvin, but just wasn't convinced until I scrolled down a little further. Ah, the good-ole days! :-)

Great pictures!!

Kristin Smith said...

Oh my goodness Becki, wow Im never gonna get over that, anyways You had the coolest wedding EVER! I wish I was there! I would have absolutley DIED if I saw you swoon!
I Love the pictures!

cokelady said...

Mom -- Thanks! I'd say that I look more like my 10 years ago self than James does his (ha!), but there's some obvious weight fluxuation (I wouldn't have known how extreme had I not tried on my wedding gown last night! Ha!), and there are a significant number of wrinkles and gray hairs that didn't exist back then. That's okay. I think James and I are both better PEOPLE now than we were then. You just can't tell by looking at us. HA!

Em -- It's crazy to look back at the pictures! On the one hand, ten years doesn't SOUND like a huge number--like it really wasn't THAT long ago. But when you look back it's like a whole different lifetime! Makes me really miss Melvin and Jeremiah and so many others from back then. As for Melvin being in the wedding, James didn't know anybody out west and didn't have any friends of his own so he had to use mine. Ha! He ended up with Jon and Keven and Melvin.

Kristin -- If you had been at my wedding you would have been one of those screaming toddlers disrupting the ceremony. You wouldn't have enjoyed it. :-) Besides, it was FOREVER LONG! About the swooning... I can assure you it never happened prior to that day, OR since. ;-)

Sister Charity said...

The whole cake thing actually comes from a middle eastern custom. A good one not a bad one. ;-p It is a salt covenant. A salt covenant is an unbreakable covenant between two people. There are many examples of salt covenants in the Bible. When two people eat a meal after making a covenant (as in a wedding) they are solidifying the covenant they have already made. Anyone else present at the meal becomes a witness of that covenant. The wedding feast in Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine is an example of this in bible days. The wedding cake usually has salt in it. The groom feeds it to the bride first because he is the initiator of the covenant. It has also come to mean in recent time that he is promising to provide for his wife. However, the smashing it into each others faces is not part of that tradition. That has come in fairly recent history. Personally I have never liked the smashing it in their face thing myself. The actual feeding each other part is a pretty neat custom when you look into it. Sorry about turning into the walking encyclopedia... ;-p

Vicki Smith said...

Hey, what happened to the other post?

Tammy K. said...

Charity thanks for the info on the cake thing...interesting.It does make the smashing in the face thing almost seem sac-religious.

Becki great post...fun memories. love the flowers.

EmileeAnn said...

Yeah, what happened to you in your wedding dress? :-)

cokelady said...

Interesting history about the cake tradition, Charity. Nice to know it's not something evil. Ha! I agree--the smashing it in each other's faces thing is dumb--and a little disgraceful if you're into the symbolism of the whole thing! Ha! Skip that part when your time comes. ;-)

The wedding gown picture... I dunno--every time I'd come to my blog I would sort of cringe! Ha! Not sure if it's because the dress didn't fit (was a little tighter than I'd usually be seen in--couldn't really tell in the photo, but it FELT weird to have it posted!) or because of the toilet in the background. Ha! I just couldn't bear to have it here anymore, so it's been successfully wiped out. :-)

Tammy Washburn said...

Happy Anniversary!

Ha! I told Mike BEFORE the wedding, "IF you LOVE me...you will NOT smash the cake in my face." He did not and I didn't do it to him either. (he knew I was serious ;P)