It feels that it's just not too long ago when we were married. Yet ten years later, we've accomplished so many things. From the smallest little things to the major events, we've conquered and triumph to make it today.
In the ten years of our marriage we've come a long way to this day. And to celebrate it, we decided to a boat cruise like what we did for our first year anniversary.
What Abbey didn't know is that many months prior today, I secretly wrote the story of our marriage and submitted to Ensign magazine to commemorate this milestone anniversary. It took me a couple weeks to write it up, then asked a couple people to read and review it, then submitted the article in May/June time in hopes that they might find the story of our marriage worthwhile to be published in their magazine. I timed it that they would have sufficient time to read, review, and if I am selected that they will publish the article in the September issue. Well apparently I wasn't sure if anyone received or read my article, so I submitted once/twice each week. And finally I receive a response that they've received my article but that my article did not fit the criteria they were looking for. Here's what they wrote to me, "Dear author:Thank you very much for sending us your submission. It is a pleasure to see new material. Every piece received is individually reviewed by the editorial staff. Unfortunately, we will not be able to publish your work. Because of limited magazine space and numerous submissions, the Church magazines are able to publish only a very small percentage of the many good items received. We regret that the time it takes to process hundreds of incoming submissions does not allow us to make comments about each one individually." The article can be read here.
Abbey and I are not fond of bouquets of flowers but I know she likes one type of flower in particular So the week prior, I asked coworkers and called all around floral shops in search of a particular flower and if they have it in a pot plant instead of cut flowers. One shop called their other stores and were no longer carrying them, I visited a flower store and spoke with one of the staff, all came to the same conclusion that that flower was a Spring flower and it's too late in the season to have them. I called one last store in desperate attempt to see if they have it. I was told they do have them in the store but they're closing in 10 mins. I've never been to this place before so rushed over there and of course since I've never been there before I got lost. By the time I got there, the lady was nice enough to let me in. She knew exactly what I was looking for and walked over with me to show me the Gerber Daisies. I was relieved but then quickly realized they were cut flowers! I was like ahhhhh!! I guess I didn't explain well enough over the phone that I was looking for the pot plant. However they were really pretty and fresh looking so I decided to purchase them anyways. Thinking the Gerbers didn't look right by themselves I had to get more flowers to accompany them to make them look better. However by now all the flower shops are closed so I stopped by a grocery store and picked up a bunch that best compliment the orange yellow Gerbers. Then rearranged the flowers to give to her along with her favorite ice cream and potato chip on the eve of our anniversary.
(It's not very extravagant but it's simple and what Abbey like)
On this particular day, the kids have half day school. We picked up the kids from school at 12:30 and dropped them off at my parents house. Right after we dropped them off, we went straight to the DC Temple to make it to the 2:00 session . After changing clothes, we were actually early for the session but they waited for about what seemed to be 20 minutes before they started. But once the session started, it was very nice and refreshing for the two of us to be alone with God in his Temple to rekindle our Spirits and to remember that without Him we probably wouldn't be able to get married and to stay married for this long.
By the time we left the Temple at 4:10p, we thought we had an extra few minutes to spare. So we went to get gas and went to the local cheesesteak sub shop to order take out of our favorite steak and cheese sub. By the time we hit the road at 4:30, our GPS displayed that we will arrive five minutes before the boat departs which we're suppose to arrive 15 mins early to check in. I was sweating that we will not make it on time so I drove a bit faster than I normally would to get to the highway. Right as I enter the ramp onto the highway, just my luck! traffic is a snail pace of 15/20 mph thanks to rush which we totally did not incorporate. Each waiting minute was more and more anxious as the GPS time to destination was recalculating closer and closer to when the boat departs. Then after 10 minutes off snail traffic, the traffic cleared and I was flying thinking that we will make it on time. No sooner I spoke, the traffic stopped again. I was panicking. We finally hit a HOV lane and I was pushing the car as fast as it can go. Abbey kept trying to calm me saying it's OK if we miss it and that is better than getting a speeding ticket. Time was getting ever so close as I was getting more and more nervous that we're going to miss the boat. I asked Abbey to give them a call that we're on the way and we may be late. The person on the phone told Abbey that they do not wait for people and leave exactly on time. Those were not words of comfort as I was flying towards the destination. We caught up to about two minutes and were literally 10 minutes away and that stretch of the highway came to a complete stop when we can see the exit. I told her to call them again. She said wait until we exited. Finally exited onto the local road, Abbey called saying that the directions on the GPS and from their website is different trying to stall time and getting them to wait. I kept speeding through the small roads as my heart is thumping faster and faster trying to get there as soon as possible avoiding any accidents since the GPS states that we will get there at 5:34. Since I've never been to this area before I did not realize this is a historic town where the roads are very narrow and turns are very tight. While Abbey's still on the phone with the lady, we were four blocks away and Abbey was told which streets to take and park. It has past 5:31 while we going every which way to get to the parking lot next to the dock. I pulled in the dock and the attendant said the lot if full stating that the lot is full. I said I didn't see the sign and pointed to an empty spot where we can park. He said there's a party coming and it's reserved. I was truly truly disappointed. I was reversing to turn the car around to leave when the attendant say just park your car here.
I was really happy! By the time I opened the door to pay the attendant Abbey already flew out of the car running to the dock to check us in. By the time I got there the boat was about to depart. The ramp was already detached from the boat and the ropes untied. And for whatever reason, they decided to redock the boat, reattached the ramp and let us right onto the boat! It was a miracle that we got on that boat since we were like 10 minutes late and were the only two late out of 30 plus people that has been on board anxiously waiting to get the boat going!! What a relief that we didn't miss the boat! Of course Abbey waits until we started sailing first before she tells me how that the Lord blesses us because we went to the Temple earlier in the day. However it happened, we thank Him for making it happen and for not letting it rain since it was forecast to rain too. For the rest of the trip, we enjoyed each other's company, reminisce about the ten years and made sure we tried to take the same exact photo we did nine years ago for our first year anniversary. After that has been accomplished, the rest is history in the making.
(click on picture to enlarge view)
