5 Years Together

Five years ago Andy drove his truck to my folks home in Ohio to pick me up. It was our wedding day and we were off to meet the photographer at a scenic lake to take bridal party pictures before the ceremony.

Driving through the small town of Caldwell on our way, Andy pulled off onto a side road.

“Gotta get the truck washed,” he said in response to my questioning look.

I was a little annoyed that he had waited to do it intil our wedding day, but I kept my mouth shut and we pulled up to a car wash.

There was an attendant there, and when Andy rolled down the window he looked at us funny as we sat there in our wedding clothes.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The old man asked with a drawl.

“We’re going to get married!” Andy fired back.

This seemed to really strike his funny bone, and he hollered to a guy across the street, “Larry, these folks are going to get married!”

“Give ’em a free wash then,” Larry shouted back.

So we got a free car wash on our wedding day and the old guy chuckled the whole time.

In the last five years we’ve been in many interesting situations, often of our own making. Like how we forgot to sign our wedding certificate and had to wait until my dad stopped laughing and brought it a mile down the road to where we were parked itching to be off on our on honeymoon. We sat there and watched all our guests leave the wedding, and to be honest I scrunched down a bit hoping they wouldn’t see us sitting there.

It feels like a lot has happened in the last five years. We’ve had three children (and one on the way!), many different jobs, moved to Alaska and built our cabin debt free. We’ve always had more time together than money, but that was our ideal even back when we were dating.

To celebrate our fifth anniversary we got the children babysat and went to Seward, Alaska, a little coastal town surrounded by mountains. It was cloudy and rainy the two days we were there, but we still enjoyed ourselves tremendously. We stayed in a little cabin on the beach and could hear the waves lapping outside all night.

We visited the Alaska Sea Life’s Center – definitely want to go back again with the children! – and explored the town of Seward.

We also got coffee and waffles at a double decker train car turned coffee shop. It was so cute, and was good to sit and reminisce about the last five years and our favorite parts of being married.