Silverware

Two jobs, one cat, no kids, Lake Elsinore, and the beaches of Mazatlan, Mexico. What do all those have in common, you ask??? They all had something and everything to do with me and Jeilene's life five years ago. Looking back, five years certainly have gone by pretty fast... but yet living in Elsinore together seems like such a long time ago. Times were different back then for sure... dinner and a movie, comedy & night clubs, weekend getaways to Big Bear, cruises, and double dates with friends were all done not only at a drop of a hat, but with quite regularity. We definitely had our fun, but ultimately we knew what was really going to make us happy, and that was to follow in our parent's footsteps and have one big happy family one day. Of course we took that first big step towards accomplishing that dream five years ago on the beaches of Mazatlan, Mexico, when I said the two most important and meaningful words of my existence... "I do!"

I honestly didn't think our lives would change all that much after getting married, but much to our delight, in just five years, the changes have been plenty - and they have been an absolute blessing. Obviously the biggest and greatest change coming in the form of who we are. Not only are we a son & daughter, and a brother & sister respectively... but we are now a father & mother. With a wild & crazy one already running around, and another on its way... Jei and I could not feel any more blessed and are so thrilled that our little family of two that began five years ago, is now growing into a happy family of four. 

 I never did imagine that I would fall in love

and marry the woman of my dreams!

And never would I have imagined that after five years, I would still be just in madly in love as I was that day on the beach... and that we would have an amazing son (one and a half sons?!) together that I would love just as much!

Just out of curiosity, as I was trying to come up with a title to this post, I tried to see if there was some silly name commonly used for 5 year wedding anniversaries. I landed on one of my favorite websites, Wikipedia... and I was suddenly enlightened. As it turns out, there is no formal name for the 5 year anniversary, however, there is a very traditional gift associated with this particular anniversary in the form of some sort of wood. Not exactly sure what that means exactly, but I'm pretty sure if I gave Jei a wooden spatula, a wood carving of an eagle, or just some plain ole firewood, she wouldn't be all that thrilled with me or the gift! But that's neither here nor there... because apparently, there also exists a more modern gift for the 5 year anniversary, in the form of silverware. Now if you already knew this, then you've been married for more than five years and/or you're a lot smarter than I am. I of course did not know this... but I realized just how extraordinarily ironic this little anecdote had become!

Due to budget restraints and of course a new baby on the way, I decided that it would probably be in our best interest as a family to forego the high-end 5 year anniversary gift of the new Mercedes, the diamond earrings, or the vacation cruise to the Caribbean. We saved our money instead and celebrated our anniversary with a simple and casual dinner out at the Olive Garden. Point being that given it was kind of a big deal... celebrating 5 years of marriage together, we chose not to do anything special or give each other fancy shmancy gifts. So there I was on this Wikipedia page about wedding anniversaries and reading about how I'm supposed to gift my spouse diamonds, china, platinum, gold, watches, crystal, etc... etc... for all these specific years of being married. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed that I hadn't gotten anything nice for Jei or at least done something special for the occasion, but then it suddenly dawned on me that I had in fact bought Jei exactly what I was supposed to after all!

It was mid September... a little less than a month away from our anniversary, when I reached into our silverware drawer at home to take out a spoon to eat some cereal with. At the time, we had exactly 4 spoons from a set that were old and super cheap. As I reached in to grab a spoon, I realized that there weren't any spoons there to grab. I then looked over to the kitchen sink and saw all four spoons piled together within several other dirty silverware, plates, and dishes all waiting to be cleaned by the magic dishwashing fairy. Without trying to exaggerate, this may have been the 160th time that a simple spoon was not immediately clean and available for me to use. For all 159 times that it happened prior, I simply mumbled a few expletives underneath my breath, grabbed a dirty spoon, cleaned it, and then went on my merry way. But this particular time, the spoon broke the camel's back and I went completely nuts! If my ridiculous reaction wasn't clear enough... I certainly made it clear in the days to follow that we seriously needed to expand our collection of silverware. It took about a week or so of online shopping and going to Macy's and Bed Bath & Beyond before we finally decided on purchasing a brand new set of silverware that included place settings for 12. Needless to say, I haven't been left spoon-less ever since!

So as it turns out, according to Wikipedia, I was supposed to give my lovely wife some silverware this year to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. And although it may have been complete and utter dumb-luck... I did exactly that, and certainly don't feel half as bad now. I may have unknowingly salvaged our "silverware" anniversary this year, but I can't imagine doing the same five years from now for our "diamond" anniversary!