Eleven Years Old!!!

Donut Day
In honor of our anniversary, Stephen came home with donuts for the family. There’s nothing that says, “I love you” like a pound of butter and sugar coated with frosting and sprinkles!

For our 11th anniversary, Stephen insisted that we needed a “day out.” After a new baby, we tend to spend most of our date nights on the couch with take-out, so this was a nice change (even if Olena did tag along)! We left for Dallas midafternoon to go through the 6th Floor Museum, which is a JFK Memorial Museum famous as being the location from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy. We both really enjoyed our tour and learned a lot. For instance, I realized that Oswald was killed in plain daylight a day after the assassination. I hadn’t ever thought to ask what happened to the killer. After our tour, Stephen and I took a walk downtown until we stopped for dinner at Hard Rock. I gave Stephen my special gift—a new wedding band to replace the band he lost several months previously. It was a little hard to say goodbye to the original ring since I had purchased it while abroad in London. However, it was fun to take all of the girls shopping to pick out our new ring. We found a keeper. Stephen was thrilled and surprised that we all kept it a secret. (I was mostly happy that he didn’t flip out over the cost—the price of gold has really risen in 11 years!) All in all, it was truly a wonderful way to celebrate our eleven years together.

We consider our anniversary not just a celebration of our marriage, but also the birth of our family. This is why we always include the girls in a family birthday party. This year we asked: “How would you like to celebrate our 11th birthday this year?” The answer: “Let’s go to Chuck-E-Cheese!” There will come a day when (and Stephen and I hope this day comes sooner than later) where Chuck-E-Cheese will not be the venue of choice, but until that day arrives, we had a great time collecting tickets, challenging each other at air hockey, chasing down Chucky and blowing out our birthday candles. Maybe when our family turns 16 we can consider a venue with better food? Jerry Seinfeld said it right: “There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”