6th Anniversary

Once upon a time a young newlywed came home from work realizing she had been married for six months. Sitting on the coffee table in the living room of their small apartment in Virginia was a vase full of sunflowers, her favorite flower in the whole world brightening up the gloomy November evening. Time passes and suddenly the newlywed is not a newlywed anymore. Six years have somehow passed and she is in their home in North Carolina and a special delivery arrives. Sunflowers, to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary.

Now the traditional gift for six years is Iron, so she also got some new numbers on her house and a pair of candlesticks too, but the sunflowers managed to bring her back in time for just a moment. Plus, her husband got a cast iron pizza stone he'd been eyeing for awhile, so he did pretty well too!

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I have to say I was a bit apprehensive about our anniversary this year. Last year we suffered a terrible loss on our fifth wedding anniversary that kind of managed to overshadow the joyous day it normally is. This year I was nervous. I was reminded of that loss and that it had been a whole year. I am pregnant again, this time nearly to my third trimester with a (hopefully) healthy baby boy, but my emotions (and hormones) were all over the place for sure. We had a few small spats that weekend, mainly due to said emotions and hormones, but overall we did have a really nice evening together.

We got all dressed up and went to Duck's, a favorite of ours in Jacksonville, and had a delicious dinner. I had my favorite, appropriately the duck, and Ryan had elk and we were super stuffed with yummy food we did not have to cook.

Plus, did I mention this dream of a cake? Oh this pregnant lady was super happy to have a Death by Chocolate cake slice. That thing didn't stand a chance between the two of us!

Some celebrations are small, different than what you expect. They can have an underlying tinge of sorrow you don't expect, but it doesn't crush you as horribly as you were dreading... and sometimes they can take you back in time with the yellow shine of a perfect sunflower that brightens your next few weeks on your dining room table. Darkness and light and balance. Happy Anniversary my love. These past six years (and, um, sixteen days since I am behind blogging) have been wonderful and I cannot wait to see what the future brings.