Booty Dance

A quick video of Hailey shaking her booty!

At about 12 seconds, she does this quick little shake that makes me laugh every time I see it. I love how she runs off camera with the dog right behind her...typical!

A Promise Kept

This month, my parents will be celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary. My family (brothers, sister-in-law and husband) are planning a party for them at the end of June. My mother wanted a low-key, casual, open house, appetizer-type event - so that is exactly what we are giving them.

This fall, Nathan and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. At this point, I don't have anything planned for that day, but all of this has lately got me thinking about weddings and how we commemorate them.

Personally, I think that we, as a society, have it all wrong!

This is what we do...two people fall in love and decide to get married. They go out and spend thousands of dollars (that they often don't even have) on the big white dress, the cake and the flowers. They throw a party, where everyone comes and gives them gifts and 'oohs' and 'ahhs' over the dresses and the flower girl. We tell the groom how lucky he is and joke about having 'the ball and chain'. Then we send them on their way...often completely unprepared for what being in a marriage entails.

Have you ever wondered what we are really celebrating? A promise, words written in a book and repeated.... and hope... hope that this couple will beat the odds, that they are meant for each other, that this marriage will last. But that's it...all of the fuss is over a few sentences whispered on the altar.

It doesn't matter how many you have been to in your lifetime... weddings are basically all the same.

Marriages however are different...every marriage is unique.

So why is it that we don't celebrate the marriage?

After you marry, that first anniversary is a big deal.. after that, they seem to loose their impact - unless it's a milestone number. Maybe you go out for dinner for your 7th anniversary', or see a movie on the 13th. After making it through the good and bad of each other for another 365 days....is that all a year is worth...a dinner at Applebees?

I say, the wedding should be small...with the idea that 'this love is a gift that has been given to you... now let's see what you do with it'. Every year that we celebrate an anniversary, the party should get bigger and bigger. I love you Mom, but I don't think that appetizers are enough to celebrate all the patience, understanding, self-control and forgiveness that comprises 50 years of staying with the one person you promised to love forever.

I read a quote once that said, 'Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle'.

I can't think of anything I have read that is more true than that.

Why do we spend all our time, energy (and money) celebrating a vow unfulfilled... yet often overlook the amazing accomplishment of a promise kept? When did the words become more important than the act? Celebrating a wedding is to honor one moment...celebrating a marriage is to honor all of them.

That is what I want to do for my parents this month...honor all their moments. Because they have the strength and courage to look at each other year after year and say "I still love you"... they have made their moments become our moments too.

Thank you Mom and Dad!