Our Wedding Anniversary: The night out that never happened

Last Wednesday, December 16th (or National Wedding Day as JustEllaBella calls it) happened to be OUR wedding anniversary too. It’s only our second one, but it feels like we’ve been married for YEARS. I think that this is partially due to the fact that we entered the marriage with a kid each, which meant instant family. (Family in a box! Think about it… It could sell…) And then 2 months after our short lived honeymoon, I discovered I was pregnant. So it feels like we’ve been Brady Bunch from the get go.

Last year, we celebrated our 1st anniversary at a family member’s wedding. Our baba was a few weeks old and I was still breastfeeding… so I could not wait to get home to her! But this year… oh this year! We could actually relish in the fact that we chose each other 🙂 Our curly girly was old enough to stay with granny for more than an hour and we really took advantage of that.

We tried to get each other cotton gifts (you know… the anniversary themed gifts thing)… but it didn’t go as well as planned. I ended up getting him a bunch of stuff that included a box of Turkish Delights (his favs) and this Google Box accessory thing that he has been throwing hints about, like a SA spin bowler. You strap your cellphone into it and it becomes a portable 3D viewer. So you can play games and watch 3D videos.Yes, I know. Why would you evens want to. Anyways.

I must say, I was really surprised by the gift he gave me! In fact, when I saw the American Swiss box, I thought maybe he was playing a Leon Schuster on me and the box was empty because “all his love” was in it. But no sir, this was not the case! I opened said box and found a beautiful pair of heart-shaped diamante earrings and a matching necklace inside! This is a big deal and a surprise because he has never ever given me jewelry before (besides for my wedding and engagement rings) because I don’t really wear jewelry that much. But this is so pretty and simple… love it! Good job husband, good job.

And that’s how our anniversary morning kicked off. The rest of the day was spent out and about with our littlest one (her brothers were with their respective other parents). We took her out to breakfast (she climbed Spurs tables, threw their crayons on the floor to watch them drop and tried to give our waitress a smooch)

Then to meet Father Christmas (she was not impressed with the strange man wearing Winter clothes in the midst of Summer).

We had waffles at this cute place called Cereal Cafe, at The Boardwalk.
They literally use sugary cereal to top your dessert of choice. So fun! So tasty! So unhealthy!

We ended up at PE’s newest mall for a stroll and to buy a few things for our date night. This girl was so cute, in the trolley, munching away on cheese curls. (And then she got bored with them and left a cheese curls trail – think Hansel and Gretel style – down a fairly long aisle at PicknPay and tried to feed some to another customer).

I realize it may seem weird that we spent the whole day with her – I mean, it was OUR anniversary and all (and all). But I think that curly is our beautiful reminder that God restores! When Hubstopher and I met, we were both broken people, each sharing a kid with another person that we were not in a relationship with. And although I give kudo’s to single parents world wide, let me be real and say that it is HARD! No matter how great your relationship is with the other parent… Or if all the families involved have healthy home situations. It’s still hard. It’s hard to know that your kid will never know what it feels like to have mommy and daddy live in the same house. It’s hard to share your child with a whole other set of parents and family members. It’s heart wrenching when 1 parent only gets to see the Christmas morning face and the other half only gets to see the Christmas evening smiles. Or, in my case, not see any Christmas action at all. (My boy’s dad lives in Cape Town). But God restores. Having Him at the centre of it all has really helped us find balance.

And then came our curly girl! She was the cherry on the cake! And looking at her is a sweet reminder that she is OURS! And we are HER parents! Together! When I asked my husband what his favorite part of our 2 years of marriage was, he promptly said “Karis”. Well, he wanted to say Karis. But I was like, DONT SAY KARIS! And then he said “I don’t know”. Hahaha.

For our date night, we decided stay in doors 🙂 Curly was with her babysitter and we had all the time in the world to dress up and go out. But we figured, why be surrounded by lots of people when we can be indoors and just be the 2 of us. It was perfect.

I am so inlove with this crazy man!
And I am so thankful that God makes all things work for my good – even when it did not look so good in the beginning.

He saved the best for last.