My thoughts on six years

Yesterday James and I celebrated our sixth anniversary. In a gesture of true romanticism, James took the day off of work, and my surprise matched his sincerity to make this the best anniversary yet. "If there was ever something to celebrate, it is me and you!" he said, racking up all sorts of brownie points. And gosh guys, it really was the best anniversary we've ever had. I give all the credit to the wonderful man that I married, with an honorable mention to Mother Nature because the weather mostly rocked.

The stars were aligned and the boys had a birthday party in the morning, so we dropped them off and giggled like the kid-less children that we were all the way to Sarabeth's for brunch. The sweetest waitress was soon at our table, and James started gushing about six years of wedded bliss. "Wow," she said shaking her head. "These days I feel like if people make it to two or three years it's a major fete. But six years, that's incredible!" And you know what? I didn't disagree. We don't take marriage lightly around these parts and I definitely don't take it for granted, so while six years is not the customary "big celebration" year like 5 or 10 or 50, I felt like our fancy breakfast and James taking off work and the fun family day we had planned was all worth it. Because six years, that's awesome.

I could say every cliche phrase in the world about how these have been the best six years of my life, how I got lucky to marry him and about how I'm excited for us to spend the next 50 together. But those really go without saying, don't they? What I really feel like saying is what I told the waitress in Sarabeth's, and that's that I'm darn proud of my husband and I. Because we are learning together and growing together, and becoming more conscious and more committed, and frankly, just better at the partnership we created six years ago. We've had fun adventures and personal tragedies, the typical highs and lows that experience brings, we've had times where we couldn't have connected more in life and love and then we've had those where we looked at each other and thought, "Who in the heck is sharing my bed?" But that's the beauty of real life, of real love. I think so at least. We have taken two individuals and have created one family, a team that we cherish and honor. And six years, two kids and about a million plane trips later here we are: together, happy, eating french toast and not toasting with the Strawberry Champagne Cocktail our waitress brought us--we fancied OJ instead!

Happy Anniversary to me and you, James. I love you. Even if we are shameful at selfies.

 You know, just taking a picture since I didn't dare take a sip!

 The french toast was out of this world. And James got a crabcake eggs benedict. Yeah, unreal.

We spent the whole afternoon in Central Park with the boys. Our first stop was to Sheep's Meadow to fly a kite. And while the kite mostly just dragged on the green grass behind little running men, we had a blast!

We were planning on taking a boat ride, but since the wind closed down the boathouse for the afternoon we decided to try our hand at sailing baby boats. The boys loved it, and I think we even figured out how to move it once or twice ;)

Right after sailing and right before we put the boys to bed and ran to a movie, the boys got to pick out an ice cream from a cart in Central Park. Don't mind T's perpetual bloody nose, poor kid. We told them that our anniversary is kind of like our family's birthday--and everyone knows no birthday's complete without a sweet treat!