Birthdays and Anniversaries

August is a celebratory month for us.  We have Cory's birthday right at the beginning and just a few days later, our anniversary.

For Cory's birthday I made some of his favorite dishes--homemade tortilla chips, fresh salsa, avocado salsa, and fajitas--and a white chocolate cheesecake with blackberry topping for dessert.  He definitely chose a yummy menu! :)

Way back when we celebrated Elise's birthday, I had bought these cute, really tall candles that almost had a tie-dye look to them.  You might remember them from THIS post, where the wind blew them out before Elise could. :)

Since the party was at the park, half the candles were covered in cheesecake, and I had so many things and people to try and see about, I wasn't going to save the candles, even though they were cute.  My dad wanted to know if he could take them and, of course, I agreed.

Then a few weeks ago we were at my parents house and they were cleaning out some of their things.  They had a mock "yard sale" just for the family, to take some of the items they were getting rid of if we wanted them.  My kids thought this was the greatest thing ever.  We all got some things that we considered treasures. But the kids also picked up a few things that I either vetoed or just rolled my eyes at.   (The funniest thing that Ian chose was a money management course--books and CD's.  I told him he'd have to wait until he could either read better or had any money to manage before I'd let him bring it home. :))  Anyway, one of the things that Merry Grace brought home was a ziploc bag of candles--those same tall, tie-dye candles from Elise's birthday.  I'll admit it.  I rolled my eyes.

Just a couple of days later we were celebrating Cory's birthday.  I'd bought 2 packs of candles that very day so that he'd be able to have 34 candles on his cake.  Everyone was gathered round and I was searching the house over for those candles.  They were nowhere to be found.  I finally decided (after a ridiculous amount of time scouring the kitchen) that I must have thrown them away in the grocery bag by accident.

In our family its tradition to blow out the correct number of candles, so I was getting frustrated by this obstacle.  Then someone mentioned the candles that Merry Grace had gotten from Grammy and Papa's house.  Unfortunately, there were not enough and some were broken.  But, since they were really tall candles, we cut them in half  or where they were broken and lo, and behold!  We had the 34 candles we needed.

And I think those candles worked out perfectly.  

We had a great time celebrating 34 years of this wonderful guy being on the Earth and a just a few days later celebrating 12 years of our life together.

In some ways it feels like we just got married yesterday and in other ways it feels like we've always been married.  Such an interesting mix of "just now" and "forever" all at the same time.  Either way, I'm so grateful for this man.  Our lives are blessed because he is a part of them.