Our Easter (and Anniversary)

We spent a beautiful weekend at my parents' house for Easter.  The weather was beautiful and the Wingers joined us on Sunday for a feast and an egg hunt and good family time.

Our schedules have been so busy with school and sports and dance and sickness and work and church that we haven't had much time to spend together.  Lori and I live 15 minutes from each other and have barely spent any time together all school year.  Another reason that I'll be happy when summer comes!  I miss my sister!

Here's the lowdown on our holiday weekend.

Dying eggs, a time honored tradition.

The Easter bunny showed up!

Posing with Papa, who was busy at church preparing and serving pancakes and sausage to the masses.  Yum.

The brood pre-hunt (including Dylan's sweet little girlfriend).

Lilly girl!

 

Cuddled up with Dad.

 

Someone else has been missing Aunt Lori too. 

Easter Sunday was also Rich and my wedding anniversary!  Twelve of the happiest years of my life have been spent as this man's wife.

Truth be told, we both forgot about it.  Lol.  Between me getting a new car and both of us preparing for Easter and everything in between, it totally slipped our minds.  No worries, though.  There is no love lost on the two of us.  As I am reminded by our friends, it's kind of disgusting how crazy Rich and I still are about each other.

We view our marriage as the foundation upon which everything else in our lives is built.  And we have learned to give it the priority it deserves.  We have our highs and lows just like every couple and have worked hard to maintain our passion through the years.  We have both made mistakes along the way (me more than him, I am certain) and will again, I have no doubt.  But we have come to realize that a marriage is a living, breathing, changing thing and, as such, is vulnerable.  So we both committed ourselves to protecting and feeding and honoring it.  It's as tough as it is rewarding.  And is not for everyone by any means.

But it works for us.  And it works very well.

The work is so important.  But I also strongly believe in love's magic and divinity and destiny.  If you know me, you know that love is pretty much my #1 thing.  A favorite pastor of mine once told me that when your marriage is going through rough times, when you're feeling far from your spouse - you both need to remember your "first works".  Which means remember what about that person made you fall for them in the first place and what about yourself made them fall for you.  (I believe that comes from Revelations in the context of straying from your faith, but it works in this context beautifully.)  I think one of the things that makes our marriage so special is that we're never very far away from those first works.  We keep them close at hand and reinvent them often, which deepens what we have.  It's easy for me because Rich is a gift and I'm reminded of that daily just by him being who he is.

Plus he's very cute.  :)

As for him...I have no idea how he does it.  I'm kind of a pain in the ass. :)

So happy Easter (and Anniversary) from this blessed pain in the rump.  I hope yours was a special as ours!