Throwback Thursday - 25 Years!

Since it's Thursday, I thought it would be fun to do a Throwback post...

Hubby and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last week!  That number seems amazing in several ways.  On one hand, it doesn't seem possible that it could be that long.  On the other hand, 25 seems like a long time and we've experienced and done so many things over those years.  And, these days, it seems like a pretty big deal with so many marriages not making it these days.

When I got married, I felt great about who I was marrying but you never truly know how it will go.  Luckily, for us, it's been better than we ever could have imagined or dreamed.  I remember the pastor that met with us before saying okay to marrying us saying that he noticed we had respect for one another and that it was the secret to a successful marriage.  I think of that often and I really think he's right.  We respect and support one another for our differences.  It also helps that we both love many of the same things and enjoy making life a fun adventure and trying new things.

We're more in love today than we were 25 years ago.  We've had a ton of fun!  I love having him in my life everyday.  And, I'm excited to be partners in adventure for 25 and 25 and 25 more years!

I pulled out our wedding photo album last week to post a few pics on Facebook.  I hadn't looked at in a while and the pictures seemed so different this time.  The hair, the clothes, the differences in how we and others looked then compared to know.  It was funny, sad, weird, and wonderful.  And, oh so 80's with big hair and big puffy sleeves!  lol

I've always loved this photo!  Everything we had to do that day was done and we were dancing and laughing.  And, we're still laughing and having a ton of fun together 25 years later!  I love that!

My dad looked so handsome!  The photographer asked us to look at one another and it put tears in our eyes.  We were trying hard not to cry!  I love my daddy!

The photographer asked my mom and I to look at each other for a photo too.  To keep from crying, we just started laughing.

My brother was in the Navy and didn't come to my wedding.  I'm not sure why because he had about a year of notice.  That just left my parents for a family photo on my side as all of my grandparents passed away when I was little.  My husband's family was pretty large though with his parents, two sisters and their husbands and he still had both sets of grandparents.  It's interesting that so much has changed since then.  His grandparents on his dad's side passed away years ago.  His other grandparents are in their 90's!  And, his sister's husbands in this photo are both no longer in the family.  Both sisters have re-married.  Then, of course, we all look different now.

Two of my best friends were in our wedding and we're all still good friends today.  Our adorable little flower girl is all grown up with a wonderful hubby of her own.

A friend of mine gave me some great advice before the wedding.  She said that something always goes a little wrong or not as planned and that you should just expect it, go with it, and laugh about it.  I kept that in mind and when the flowers arrived that day with some boutonnieres missing and the bouquets looking VERY different than I'd expected.  They were so sparse, with so few flowers.  And, the red in the flowers with the blue ribbons made them look patriotic.  Oh well!  I just figured that's what my friend was talking about, we chuckled about it and moved on.  What else could we have done anyway?  Great advice!

The photographer took photos of hubby and the guys out on the church playground.  They were silly and had fun, as always.  His friend on the left passed away years ago.  He's still great friends with Dave, on the right, and we see him whenever we can.  He's a great guy and always makes us laugh.  Our little ring bearer is not only all grown up but he's in his 30's!  How weird is that?! 

For this milestone, we celebrated with a two week vacation to some awesome places in Utah and Arizona in September.  For the actual day, we exchanged some simple gifts and went out for happy hour and a fun dinner.  My hubby's parents really wanted us to have a party but all of our friends are so spread out geographically and many of them don't even know one another.  So, they surprised us with a gift certificate saying that they want to pay for the hotel for a ski weekend at a place of our choice.  Wow!  So sweet!  Another celebration!  How fun!  :-D