10 years a Hug

Happy Anniversary, Honey! Titus and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary this week. Titus' brothers and their wives graciously agreed to keep our little cowboys so we could get away to the San Juan Islands. We took the ferry over to Orcas Island from Anacortes. It was beautiful!

It was great to have a little second honeymoon. We enjoyed the view from our balcony the first night.

Then, after waiting for 10 years, we got to open our box. At our wedding, my friend, Chara, put out a box for people to put notes in. Then the box was locked and not to be opened for 10 years.

People seem surprised that we actually waited the whole ten years to open it :) We didn't want to ruin the surprise. As we took turns reading the notes written a decade previous, we laughed and we cried. Well, I cried. We had a note from our precious Jackie, who has since gone on to be with the Lord. She said she was sure we would have a beautiful family and she hoped she would be around to see it. I hope she can see from heaven.

Many people mentioned the possibility of children, and I cried as I realized how blessed we have been. I can't imagine our lives without our little lambs. I often take them for granted, but when given a moment to pause and think about our family, I was overcome with gratitude. It has been a good 10 years.

Also in the mix were several humorous notes, the most suspicious was not signed, only initialled B.D. It was a story about Roy Rogers and his house slippers. Titus and I could not figure it out.(If anyone has insider information on this, feel free to share. We are suspicious of one Brian D., as we could not think of anyone else with those initials who was at our wedding.)

We had a bit of rain, but had 2 sunny afternoons, one to enjoy a bike ride around Friday Harbor, calamari by the sea and ice cream, another to go kayaking in a tandem kayak.

I would highly recommend the tandem kayak(although we left the camera behind in the dry car, so I have no pics.) This way, your husband can propel you along if you have an emergency or an injury out on the open sea. If, for example, you get a wound on your rowing finger which is painfully aggravated every time an oar splashes salty water on it, you can take time to rest while your husband keeps you going on to your destination.

I would also recommend this for biking, but we did not have a bicycle built for two. When I asked Titus for a tow rope, he only laughed thinking I wanted a "toe rope" for another one of those notorious injuries.

The problem with biking is that I had stored up many romantic thoughts about biking the isles. Needless to say, any romantic images were quickly shattered once the peddaling began. I hadn't realized that there would be hills. Now, for most people, the challenge of going up the hill is more than made up for by the thrill of speeding down the other side. Not for me. While going up the hill is painful, slow, and exhausting, going down it is worse.

I am not what one might call, a thrill seeker. I try to avoid adrenaline, so when going downhill, I am forced to brake the entire time. Meanwhile my husband yells out accusingly from the bottom of the hill, "You're not braking again are you?!" The one time I tried to avoid braking, I nearly had a heart attack. As I sped down the hill with cars whizzing by me I shouted, "Oh Jesus! Oh, Jesus!" repeatedly at the top of my lungs. Mercifully, He heard my cries and I am alive to write this.

We stayed by the water and saw otters, starfish, fish and birds. The view from our porch was beautiful. Overall, it was a fabulous trip commemorating 10 years!