On December 16th, 1994, Margaret and I stood up in front of a small gathering of family members, in a small courthouse room, and recited our vows to each other. And in those years, we've had ups and downs, just like any other marriage. And at this point on the road of life, as we pass mile marker 14, we're as happy with each other as we've ever been.


Jim made a very good point recently about taking the time to forget the daily ins and outs of life and simply enjoy some quality time with your significant other. A bottle of wine, a nice movie, and no distractions. It sure sounded nice and I was looking forward to our night, tonight.


We both worked today. I had a pretty dirty, dusty day at the plant, and Margaret had a house full of kids. Pretty normal day. So when I came home, I figure as soon as the daycare kids get picked up, we'll have Amber watch the boys and we'll go out for our anniversary dinner. Nope. Amber has to work late. Ok, we can work around that.


Margaret volunteers at a local PADS shelter on Tuesday nights and accidentally forgot that our anniversary fell on a Tuesday. An honest mistake. She wasn't able to make arrangements to have someone cover her duties tonight. So she needs to go in a for an hour or two. Ok. We still have a few hours available after that. This can still work.


Hmmm...one of the daycare kids is still here, because one of her parents is stranded on the tollway somewhere in the snow storm that hit this afternoon, and the other is tending to a sick parent in Chicago. Pick up time is usually no later than 6pm. Her dad finally gets here at 7:45pm. No biggie. Margaret still isn't back yet. We can still make this work.


Margaret rolls in at about 8pm and says that she has to go back, because no one else from the usual crew of people showed up to help out at the shelter. Most likely because of the storm. Storm or no storm, these guys have no place to go tonight if no one shows up to serve the food, do the laundry, and pass out bedding. There was one other helper, but she was new and had never done it before. Margaret says she'll be back at 10pm. She takes Eli with her because he'll be ready to eat anytime now. So now it's me and Ian, watching Terminator 2 on tv.


I put Ian to bed at 9:30pm, and I suit up to go shovel the 3-4" of snow that has fallen so far. Margaret pulls up shortly after I finish the driveway and comes into the house for the night. It's 10:10pm.


Earlier today I had set up the studio downstairs in Ian's playroom and told Margaret to get dolled up for our anniversary portrait. Eli was sitting in his bouncy chair to camera left on the floor, and since Ian was in bed and Amber wasn't home yet, we set the self timer and fired off a few dozen frames.


We had a few laughs during the session and made smiley faces at Eli between takes. And while tonight didn't have the storybook ending that we hoped for, it seemed to work out in the end anyways.


It's been a great fourteen years, my love. So how are we gonna top this night next year? ;)