Twenty-three

Mike and I are celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary today.  And it's pretty exciting.  It's exciting that we are still happy together.  It's exciting that we haven't killed each other.  We don't fight often, but when we do, the fights tend to be epic.  Epic fights over silly stuff, like whether we should buy mint chocolate chip or strawberry ice cream.  (It's true.  About 99.9% of our epic fights have occurred in the grocery store!  What does that even say about us??)  And it's exciting that we finally know how long we've been married.

We've been married 23 years, today.  Okay, so most people know when they got married.  Most people have big, fancy weddings with lots of guests who, on the off-chance that the happy couple forgets what year they were married, they could ask.  Most people have marriage certificates and photo albums and scrapbooks....

Mike and I are definitely not 'most people.'  We aren't the mushy, love & roses type.  We decided to get married, bought the rings & said the I do's all within about three weeks time.  We got married in the magistrate's living room with only our parents & siblings in attendance.  We didn't even make reservations for a honeymoon suite.  We went fishing on our honeymoon.  Fishing!  (See, it's a wonder I haven't killed him yet.)  Can you even call going fishing a honeymoon?  Starting our marriage out by going fishing may be part of the reason I've blocked our wedding date from memory.

Anyway...  We didn't have a big, fancy wedding with lots of dated memorabilia.  We also had a flood that destroyed what little documentation we had.  For years, we've known the month and day we got married, but we couldn't remember which year the joyous fishing trip occurred.  Well, recently, while cleaning out a junk drawer, I came across the receipt for my engagement ring.  We were married on June 25, 1993, which means....

Happy 23rd wedding anniversary, Mike.  Despite my sarcasm and complaints about going fishing, I wouldn't have changed a moment of our time together.  Not even the fishing trips.  Despite your choice of ice cream flavors, I still love you and am looking forward to the next 23 years.  Happy Anniversary!

(And hint, hint.... Maybe next time, we can find a fishing hole near a yarn shop.)