& that's the way life goes

Three years ago today C and I got married, on my parents anniversary, on a beach on Hanalei Bay, Kauai.

Three years ago I had no idea what it actually meant to be married.  It couldn’t be much different than living together, right?

Wrong.

In the past 3 years I’ve gone through a lot of emotions.  I won’t lie and say most of them were good, I’d say it was 60% good and 40% bad.  I think it took me 3 years to adjust to being married.  To being attached to someone and  having to share almost everything with another person.  I think we do a good job of staying true to ourselves and keeping our separate identities.

When you get married everyone tells you it isn’t all fun and games and they can talk until they are blue in the face.  It’s one of those life things that you have no idea what it’s going to be like until you actually do it and are immersed in it.  You can’t plan for the fights or what they will be like, or even what they will be about.  Some are pretty petty and stupid but a fight all the same.  It’s amazing how fast you can go from a feeling of pure adoration to ‘omg I might hate you right this moment”.  But it’s because of the fights and aggravation that you can fully appreciate the moments (big or tiny) when you are laughing together and you think life is good and you feel completely content.

There have been numerous ups and downs.  Life events that changed us both.  But we’ve made it this far and because of that I think we’ll survive this societal thing called marriage.  I still have a hard time signing my married name.  It isn’t me. Yet. Or maybe I’ve always had a problem writing ‘ch’ in cursive, I have no idea.  No one can prepare you for marriage.  But I can tell you that you do build strong bonds in everything you go through as a couple.  C and I, we may be complete opposites, but it works for us.

I’m so thankful that we’ve stuck through everything together.  There are many times I’d like to punch him in the face, but lucky for him there are more moments of us laughing together to make it all worthwhile.

I’m not that great at being all smooshy.  And I’m not one to tell you all the nice, thoughtful things he does for me.  So just know that he is awesome and I’m lucky

2 years ago today…

from left to right: Stop at Lumahai Beach before getting ready; T doing my nails; T doing my hair; photos behind our Kauai cottage; My daddy and I; the ceremony; First kiss; rings; cake!

I have to admit it feels longer than just 2 years and I’m pretty sure C would tell you the same.  We’ve had lots of downs and ups.  I won’t sugar coat it.  We aren’t that annoyingly happy couple that has fun together all the time and we don’t pretend to.  But we’ve had lots of great times and awesome memories.  We are constantly moving forward and planning.  I think we will continue to build the life each of us pictured with some bumps along the way.

We got married on the sandy beach of Hanalei on the north shore of Kauai.  This year National Geographic rated it the United State’s number 1 best beach!  Our ceremony was picture perfect.  We had a small reception at the Bali Hai with the 17 people that came to share our special day.  Aren’t we lucky we had 17 people travel 4,000 miles to be with us?

Here’s to 2 years and counting.

Aloha!

Even though today is our anniversary, we celebrated yesterday by putting C’s toy our boat in the water.

We bicker a lot about the boat, I won’t go into it here but the issues of the boat raise my blood pressure. I think we stopped talking to one another a half an hour before we put the boat in. But once you get it in and start it up all the animosity and stress fades.

C’s been putzing and tinkering with the boat for about 2 months now, getting it ready to put in the water. Apparently, it will now go 4mph(? knots per hour?) faster because of the tweaking he’s done. I think I saw the speedo hit 60mph but I was too busy hanging on for dear life (nervous much?).

I should also note, that I’m proud of our one year anniversary and we didn’t kill each other

Here are a couple more pics I took while we were out there

Since we were starving when we got home it was our anniversary I made dinner. Turkey paninis and pasta

In other news:

I tested for my senior red belt on Saturday, which means I will test for my bodan (temporary blackbelt) in December.

I spent $300 at the vet’s on Saturday morning.

The Red Wings lead the Stanley Cup Finals Series 3-1! Go Wings!!!!

Ok, next Monday is mine and C’s first wedding anniversary. Aww right? Apparently there is some traditional gifts paper or a clock. I’m so clueless. I don’t know how traditional I am. I read something about buying him a tree…haha ok seriously I need help.

I have no problem getting something little to represent the “traditional” first year gifts. But I’d also like to find something that he’d love but wouldn’t buy for himself. Here’s the thing, I have no idea what that is. Neither one of us is great with gifts. I try to think about what he likes and he’s so difficult!

How do you figure out what the perfect gift would be for someone?