16 Years of Marriage

Tomorrow is our 16th wedding anniversary, and I feel like K.J. and I have 15 years of low-key anniversary celebrations under our belt that have prepared us for an anniversary taking place during a pandemic when restaurants and cinemas are closed.  

Truly, we've always celebrated in whatever avenue felt natural at the time, no fancy dinners required.  Our celebrations are on a scale from last year's Starbucks date all the way to our two weeks in England on our 7th anniversary.

Each year on our anniversary and Valentine's Day I play a game that K.J. hates:  "Let's think about what we did on this day for the entire time we've been together!"  K.J. has a good memory, but it does not record that particular information.  I thought I'd be kind and do some digging through an old hard-drive.  Now we'll always know.

Year One

K.J. was cutting his own hair, I was young, and we were both a little pink from a day at the beach on Dauphin Island.  We went to visit my grandparents in Mobile and see friends after his sister's wedding.  It was our first year living in Louisville, Kentucky, and we are eating my Papa's famous shrimp and rice.  

Year Two

This is about a month before our second anniversary, and I only have this picture thanks to my dad!   I'm pregnant with Ella, and K.J., my dad, and I just loaded up a moving van with our belongings so we could move to a townhouse.  We also unloaded everything in the same day, and my body was so achy at the end of it.  No photographic evidence of our second anniversary exists.  Did we go to that Mexican restaurant down the street from our new place?  Did we go to Cheddar's?  Both seem possible, but no one knows now because the iPhone wouldn't be on the market until the next year.

Year Three

Again, I have no idea what we did to celebrate our actual anniversary.  My sister and brother-in-law were living in the Louisville area then; did they babysit for us?  Did K.J.'s brother baby-sit, because he was in college there at the time.  Again, no one knows.  I am sensing a theme here in how amazing the advent of the iPhone was in helping us remember things.  I know we went home to Alabama in May for my youngest brother's graduation, but I don't have those pictures here.  But here's our family of three at the Louisville Airport.  K.J. is picking up his girls who took the $69 Southwest flight from Louisville to Birmingham to celebrate his grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.  K.J. had to stay behind and work, good man.

Year Four

May 2008 K.J. graduated from seminary, and we moved back to Alabama.  Photographic evidence says it was a low-key anniversary.  A new friend let us borrow the key to her neighborhood pool, so we took Ella.  I have another picture of Ella holding up a picture to the wall in our new house to see if it would look good there.  I feel sure we must have gone to eat or to a movie, though.  After all, we had just moved to the same city with K.J.'s parents.  Surely we took advantage of free and glad babysitters.  Prince Caspian was in theaters then.  I bet we went.

Year Five

Now I completely remember our 5th anniversary, though there is no photographic evidence of the day of course.  This might be the first year K.J. planned something that was tailor-made for my delight.  Maybe it takes five years to really get to know your spouse.  

I was pregnant with James and was just reaching the point of needing new clothes.  K.J. planned a night away at a hotel in Birmingham.  We left Ella behind, and the best part was he told me not to pack anything; I could go shopping for everything I needed when we got there.  We ate dinner at P.F. Chang's at the Summit.  We went to Old Navy and Barnes and Noble.  The following day the shopping continued at the Galleria.  It was the perfect gift to me.

Year Six

Year six K.J.'s brother ended up marrying on our anniversary, and I will for.ev.er remember this day, because that woman in the picture only slept about two hours the night before because a 7-month-old James had just learned to press up on his arms.  He slept on his stomach at the time, so each time I put him down asleep in the crib he would immediately wake up and press up on his arms and cry.  I finally grabbed a couple of hours with him sleeping on my chest in the bed.  I can vividly see myself in the shower at my grandmother's house that morning before a full day of wedding parties and pictures leaning my head on the wall and praying, "Oh, God, I feel like I'm going to die."  But God was gracious, and weddings are exciting and fun, so I made it.  And K.J.'s cousin Hillary baby sat for us when we got back home so we could go out, so double picture time.  Double picture time because guess who finally got a good camera and started taking pictures and never stopped?!

Namaste sign because the series finale of LOST was the night before, and we had a viewing party.

Year Seven

The day of our anniversary fell on a Sunday, and we went to Olive Garden after church with friends that night to eat.  I think the kids were with my parents because K.J. had just arrived back home from Cuba, and we'd had a wedding the night before.  But our big celebration was our Year of Jubilee trip to England in the fall of that year.  It was a life-changing, life-forming trip.

Year Eight

Apparently Ella graduated from Kindergarten on our 8th anniversary.  This picture is with K.J.'s grandparents the night before graduation.  I feel like we took her to the McDonald's at Wal-Mart beforehand?  I told you we weren't fancy restaurant people.  I'm sure we must have marked the occasion in some way, but all I remember is Kindergarten graduation and learning Ella had the highest GPA in Kindergarten.  I love the matching sneers Ella and James have in this picture.

Year Nine

After a mission trip to serve Emmanuel International Church in Paris we stayed an extra week to celebrate our ninth anniversary.  When the occasion presents itself, K.J. outdoes himself.  We drove around Normandy for three days, staying in different places, but the main anniversary surprise was staying at this chateau with a Marquis and Marquess.  It was a dream...but I left a new sweater there that I still miss.  This trip would also turn out to be life-changing and life-directing.  It really cemented in our hearts that we felt called towards Europe.

Year Ten

Ella made me the necklace I'm wearing for our anniversary, and I wore it to a retirement party for a dear friend of ours.  After the party we had dinner at Panera Bread and went to Barnes and Noble afterwards where I had a coffee frappe.  It wasn't fancy, but it was us.  

Year Eleven

Anniversary eleven we were six months into living in England.  Friends kept our kids for us, and we drove to York to keep up with American culture and had dinner at a French restaurant after I turned down the crazy first restaurant K.J. tried to take me to with a lot of animal heads on the wall.  I had Camembert for dinner, so I was happy.

Year Twelve

Ella made K.J. and I these matching badges to wear to church.  In England kids often wore badges to school on their birthday.  It was the day of the family bike ride to a neighboring village, and Ella and K.J. took off only to return a little later because Ella had a stomach virus.  But I had just discovered Marks & Spencer in a neighboring town, and I bought one of their weekend deals, so we parented and ate individual desserts out of small jars.

Year Thirteen

Look, another Marvel movie!  The kids were in school, so we were able to go to brunch in Harrogate and then to our first movie on a sofa where we ordered snacks and drinks from a waiter.  Fancy.

Year Fourteen

A lot happened in a year.  On our 14th anniversary we'd been living in Paris for four months, and Lua and Seth were visiting.  They oh, so kindly hung out with the kids for us, and we went to Five Guys and to a movie.  I don't remember what, but I feel like it had to be another Marvel movie, doesn't it?  It's just that time of year.  Yep, it was totally Black Panther.  We got caught in the rain walking back from the Metro and took this picture to document in the courtyard of our apartment.

Year Fifteen

Last year we started out dreaming big--fly to Venice for $50?, go see Hugh Jackman perform, dinner at the Greek restaurant in our town?--and ended up going to the mall, ordering iced coffee for me and chocolate chaud for him.  It felt right.

If you stuck with me for that marital history, you're a dear.  This is mainly for us to remember, and it was fun.  It's good being married to K.J. Pugh.  He loves me well, and I'm grateful.