Six Years And Tradition

Jim and I. Going strong for six years now!

So naturally this weekend we exchanged gifts. We’ve become quite the traditionalists when it comes to anniversary gifts – and often use the guideline of number of years wed=number of dollars spent on the traditional gift. You laugh, but it requires such thought that it often makes the giving all the more meaningful. HOWEVER, we’re already having trouble remembering what we gave in years 2-4, so I’m going to start writing it down. Hence the blog post you are now suffering through.

Last year we deviated from the micro-budget plan to celebrate our fifth (the wooden anniversary) with a new hutch in which to store all of the glassware wedding gifts that had been patiently waiting in our basement. There is such a long and stressful story about this hutch, I cannot even get into it. But now that we own it, we celebrate how it was the perfect match for us, housing not just the glassware, but also my home office in the middle portion and even the kids toys in the bottom. Now that’s multitasking at its finest!

This was the candy year, according to Hallmark. So Jim got me 6 fancy candy bars from Zingerman’s. Obviously he doesn’t read this blog or he would know I’m on a diet. But! They are handmade in Ann Arbor from premium ingredients and that is pretty darn cool. Plus, I can always eat one bite per day and celebrate the whole year through!

For my groom’s gift, I devised The Great Escape (a little play on The Great Escape Adventure Race we competed in on the first Sweetest Day of our relationship). His gift is comprised of three scheduled dates where we will go geocaching, mountain biking and kayaking. If you don’t count the babysitter, these gifts run a whopping $3.50 for the kayak rental, and another $2 for an iphone app to help with the orienteering. So I packaged it all up in candy bars and ended up breaking the budget. Oh well. He’s worth it.

We rounded out the day with a home improvement project (more on this later), topped of by a bite of our wedding cake that’s still fighting the good fight. And here’s to at least six more best years of our life!