Happy Tenth Anniversary

As we rode into Walt Disney World last Thursday, I told Kyle it was just about the same time that we were getting married ten years earlier. In some ways, it seems hard to believe we’ve been married for ten years, while other times, it’s hard to remember a time that we weren’t together.

Anniversary Dinner at Cafe Narcoosee's

This year, we celebrated with a three-day trip to Orlando, FL, to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. We started talking about taking a trip to celebrate sometime last year, and it seems like we talked about a million places. Kyle lobbied for New York City in the beginning because he wanted to take me to see a show on Broadway. But ultimately, we decided that Universal Studios was the perfect place to mark ten years together. And thanks to our friend, Laura Wagahoff at It’s a Small World Adventures by Laura, it was perfect. Extra special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Galer for keeping the girls so we could enjoy a weekend getaway.

All dressed up to celebrate our tenth anniversary.

Laura did all the booking for us, and somehow, we’ll say that old Disney magic, everywhere we went, people knew it was our anniversary. We got purple and orange Happy Anniversary balloons (to match our Magic Bands) when we checked into the hotel, along with a photo signed by Mickey and his crew. The hotel manager even left a card on our bed with a chocolate treat in celebration of our anniversary. I would definitely say we felt spoiled the entire time we were there.

Getting spoiled at dinner.

Although we stayed on Disney property, we hadn’t really planned on visiting any of the Disney Parks, so Laura found us a romantic restaurant called Cafe Narcoosee’s at the Grand Floridian to celebrate on our anniversary. We took a bus from our hotel to the Magic Kingdom, and then Kyle suggested a boat ride across the lagoon to get to the restaurant. Our table was right on the water and the food was amazing. We capped off the evening watching the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom.

Visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

We spent the next day wandering around two parks at Universal Studios. And from the “caraoke” on our first Uber ride to the butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron, the day was nearly perfect. We enjoyed walking around all the Harry Potter sights and doing some shopping. And even though we were way too chicken to ride the Harry Potter roller coasters, we found a few rides in the Dr. Seuss section that were more our speed. I even beat Kyle at air hockey in the arcade.  To end our day, we found an Italian restaurant just outside Universal that reminded us of our honeymoon to Italy.

Drinking butterbeer at Universal Studios.

All too soon, it was the final day of our trip. We slept in and enjoyed some time at Disney Springs. Lunch at Frontera by Rick Bayless was one of the best meals of our trip, and of course, we did way too much shopping for the girls again. Before we left, we stopped for some gelato, which also reminded us of our time in Italy ten years ago, and a visit with one of my high school friends.

Throughout the weekend, Kyle and I talked about other anniversary celebrations. We moved into our new house the day before our first anniversary, so that one was extra special to us, celebrating in our first home. My mom brought over dinner, and we dined by candlelight before eating some not-so-delicious year-old wedding cake. I’m not sure who started that tradition, but I think it’s one we could live without!

Lunch at Disney Springs on the last day of our trip.

Other years are fuzzy. TimeHop reminded me that Kyle made me breakfast in bed of French toast a couple of years. And we love to eat out at the former Church Street Pub and Canton Inn. We’ve taken a couple other trips to celebrate over the years, just not on our anniversary date. We spent one cold weekend in Madison, WI, to see the Avett Brothers, and another warmer weekend in July to see the same band at Red Rocks in Colorado.

It’s kind of funny that we had trouble remembering what we did on our anniversary the previous nine years. And we didn’t always celebrate on the exact day. But we always make time to celebrate both our love and our marriage.

Having some Italian gelato before heading home.

When we returned to our hotel room after dinner at the Grand Floridian, we watched a video of our wedding highlights on Facebook posted by Video Edited Memories. The video included our vows, “in good times and bad, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”  I can’t say that when anyone ever gets married they feel like there will be bad times. I just remember being so incredibly happy that day, thinking that marriage would be like all those romantic comedies I watched all those years.

Marriage is definitely not the simple “happily ever after” portrayed in all those movies. Marriage means compromise (which is always hard). It means being there for the other person when he or she is having one of those bad times. And it means always remembering why you fell in love in the first place.

So, here’s to the next ten years of marriage, and the next 20 after that. I can’t wait to see what adventures await us.

mlh