Happy Anniversary to Us!

Bill and I were married on a day much like this one, fourteen years ago today ~ bright, blustery, autumn leaves whipping on the wind. Only, October 23, 1993 was a good 10 or 20 degrees cooler than its 2007 counterpart! Gosh, it's so warm here today, like summer all over again.

I can't get my scanner to work just now, so instead of posting a wedding photo here, I'm going to link you to my anniversary post from last year: Lucky Thirteen. Wow, has it really been a year since that post? Has it really been 14 since that picture was taken?!

At the top of this post is a picture of our celebration table tonight. We have a tradition of calling this day our family's birthday as well our wedding anniversary, so up went the Happy Birthday sign and out came a dark chocolate cake - complete with candles, of course. :) Flanking the cake are lovely bouquets given to me by my parents and Bill.

Now earlier in the day, the boys and I were thinking over what to give Daddy as a gift for this special day. We had a few general ideas, but on a whim, I looked up what the traditional gift for the fourteenth wedding anniversary would be; as it turns out that gift would be ivory. This site had some great ideas for ivory-themed gifts, and after a bit more digging online, we decided to adopt an elephant in Bill's name through the World Wildlife Federation. (Ivory comes from tusks, as you know. Elephants are now an endangered species, due to illegal poaching and habitat loss.)

First we set about making a card ... 

Each of the boys colored an elephant picture and we glued them onto the front of a red file folder. We slipped a copy of the adoption certificate inside and on the tab we wrote: "Happy Anniversary, Dad!"

Now it was time for me to sign my own card (elephants didn't seem quite romantic enough, lol). I also popped a cake in the oven and set up the birthday regalia:

And while looking for a cake stand downstairs I came across this candle:

Though we're not big on scented candles anymore (too many allergies) I had to light this one for a short time today (next to an open window). Yankee Candle Spiced Pumpkin candles were our wedding favors!

Oh, this was cute. Just after Bill got home, and as I was lighting the cake candles, Crackerjack tugged on my sleeve and said, "I have another anniversary present for you, Mama ..."

"The sunset!"

So another year has come and gone! It brought lots of little things - cakes, flowers, homemade cards, sunsets and candles in the window - leaving behind a whole bunch of fond memories. I'll gladly trade a few more grays for another year full of this stuff. :)