15 Years of Togetherness

We married on the day before my parent’s 30th anniversary and I can’t believe we’re already half way to that milestone. We celebrated  this victory, our relationship that has grown in love and overcome many great things, with a trip to the ocean. It had been four years since our last family vacation, the one where we drove from Jinja, Uganda to Nairobi, Kenya then flew to the coast where we breathed in the ocean air, basked in the sun, held an octopus, and were cared for with African hospitality. Yep, we road tripped through Africa, crossing boarders, traveling through the beautiful highlands and into the Great Rift Valley with her wandering wildlife, stopping to buy large baskets on the side of the road and reading the words of Karen Blixen, while getting lost on the streets that used to be her countryside.

Those images will never leave us, though they get a little blurry as our story continues and we relish and enjoy fresh images of new and old places. That family trip closed out our normal in Uganda, and when we returned to Jinja we began to deconstruct everything we had built to make that place home, readying ourselves for what would be our hardest goodbye. So we look back on that week with such sweetness.

Four years is a long time for a family not to scoot away from everything and everyone to just be present with each other. Especially when we live a very engaged life of intentional community and activities that continually shape who we are and who we are becoming. So instead of a romantic getaway just him and me, we decided to take all seven of us. To enjoy family time, to play together, to refresh our relationships, and to celebrate our love with the ones born of it.

And it was so much fun.

And still romantic.

We won’t let another four years pass by before we do this again.