time flies when you're having fun!

Friends in the blogosphere, I must admit that time truly flies when you are having fun. Steven and I have spent the past few days celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. On September 10, 2004 our lives changed forever as two became one. Here we are, five years later, marvelling at how quickly time passes. It really does seem like yesterday that I put my wedding dress on, carefully placed my veil, and walked down the aisle to become a Dial.

In the past 5 years we have....
taken 7 vacations
moved twice
changed jobs 9 times (counting internal position changes)
owned 7 different vehicles
gained a total of 80 pounds and lost almost all of it
lost 3 grandparents
celebrated 1 sibling's marriage
become an aunt and uncle (twice!)
and completed 2 college degrees.

We've laughed enough times to make up for the times when we've cried. We fought against each other and fought side by side to save our marriage from falling apart. We've watched dozens of friends marry, divorce, and have children. We've stood by each other through sickness (ask Steven about my wisdom teeth extraction some time...great stories!) and health. We've been there for richer or poorer. We've had some tough conversations, but plenty of silly ones, too (especially when we should be going to sleep!).

To celebrate our big day, Steven planned an evening of suprises. Men in the blogging world, take note. My husband is the master of surprises! He comes up with the most thoughtful gifts and does some really fantastic things for me. We started off with dinner at Baci, a great Italian place about a mile from our house. After a delicious dinner and yummy spumoni for dessert, we took our leftovers to Steven's brother's house for safekeeping in the fridge while we went out for our night on the town. Steven purchased tickets to see Peter Pan performed at the Herberger Theater by the Valley Youth Theater (Jordin Sparks is an alum of this group). Peter Pan is one of my favorite stories of all time, maybe because Peter refuses to grow up, but nonetheless Steven took me to see it performed live. It was fantastic!

After that, we came home for part 2 of the evening. I was in for a huge and very romantic surprise. Steven had hired a company to come in and do a rose petal turn down service at our house! There was a trail of rose petals from the garage door to the bedroom. In the bedroom, there were candles and sparkling cider and towels folded like kissing swans and chocolates. Playing in the background was a playlist of love songs Steven hand picked for the occasion. When we walked through the door, our wedding song was the song playing. I highly recommend Special Night In!

The surprises didn't stop there! Steven got me a new iPod for our anniversary and had our friends (and fellow BODYCOMBAT instructors) put all the BC music on it! Have I mentioned how thoughtful Steven is? I am one lucky lady.

Our fourth year of marriage was the hardest we have had, but year number five is off to a fantastic start! It is nights like last night and the thoughtfulness I was lucky enough to experience that makes all the tough times worth it.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!