On July 2 we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I find it hard to believe that we’ve been married for this many years. We’ve been in each other’s lives for 13 years. Thirteen! (My lucky number!)
We’re lucky because our wedding anniversary always falls on a holiday since Canada Day is the 1st. This year the Monday off was our anniversary and we spent the entire long weekend doing fun things and then spent the day out in the Old Port of Montreal as we normally do.
This year, rather that eat at Pub St. Paul as per the norm, we mixed it up and went to The Keg in Old Montreal where I was delighted to discover they had a lobster fest going on. Mmmm. Lobster. We had gotten Keg gift certificates at Christmas and originally were going to use them for my birthday in January but we ended up not going (weather, I think) so lucky us! We even splurged and bought a bottle of wine, too!
We decided to go see the Star Wars Identities exhibit at the Montreal Science Centre before going to dinner. I bought our tickets online (even though they charge $3 each in processing fees for ONLINE tickets. Geez.) and I would highly suggest if you want to go over the summer to buy your tickets online because the days sell out FAST. So we drove to the Old Port under ominous cloud coverage and of course as soon as we stepped out of the car it started to rain. Thanks, nature.
We skeedaddled from the parking lot towards the Science Centre and managed to get out from under the rain clouds. Halfway between the car and the Centre we ran into this:
If you’re not from Montreal you might not realize how awesome it is to find a truck that sells Monsieur Felix and Mr. Norton cookies. You might not realize how DELICIOUS these cookies are. Seriously. If you look really close you can see the little TV in the truck is playing videos of Cookie Monster. Awesome! We got 6 cookies and each scarfed three as we hoofed it to the Centre. We had to be there 15 minutes before our slotted time and we were cutting it close. But… COOKIES! And I was starving.
As for the Star Wars exhibit… I’d suggest you go when there are no crowds. It wasn’t that bad on July 2 towards the end of the day, but you get awfully bottle-necked even though they only let in groups of 15-20 every 15 minutes. There are 10 interactive stations where you get to create your own character and though some stations have really quick flow, others have people lined up and trying to cut in line so it doesn’t flow as well. We got stuck at two stations pretty bad, but you didn’t want to skip them because you wanted to create your character! And there was supposedly a place where you could put in your email at the end and have your character information sent to you. We didn’t see this at all, so all the extra questions we answered about personality, etc seemed sort of moot. I did take photos of our characters though!
If you squint really hard you can see tiny characters of each of us in the background of each photo. It shows the character yours is friends with. So Shawn’s in the back of mine (Wookie) and I’min the back of his. I didn’t even notice that until my friend Elise told me we should be in the photo. heh We’re both bounty hunters! Wookies look silly with bounty hunter armour.
Then we went to dinner, ate a lot, drank some wine (I know! Me! I’m getting to be quite the lush this summer!) I even went out and actually BOUGHT the wine I liked from The Keg. It’s a rosé. I am sure you were all dying to know that.
We both had Tuesday off for various reasons so it was nice to go out, eat, wander around and not have to worry about getting up early the next day. It was a relaxing and fun anniversary.
So much has happened to us in the last few years, heck, there have been challenges all throughout the 7 years we’ve been married but each and every time we’ve come out stronger and more in love. We have our silly moments that just fill my heart with love. We don’t call each other on the phone every day or email back and forth from work as much as we used to (way back in the early stages) but we find new ways to love each other. We always travel to and from work together and if we can manage it, we’ll grab lunch together too during the work week. I will stay later at work just to make sure I catch the same bus as my husband and he comes in earlier than he needs to just to take the bus with me.
There were no gifts this year (although I did go to NYC for a week and Shawn did get a new computer, so that’s good enough. Oh! And I bought us tickets to see The Muppets at the end of this month as one of the Just for Laughs Galas!) and no cards even – our days were such that we ran out of time to actually get to a card store! But we spent the gorgeous weather long-weekend together and just did things at our own pace and on our own time. That is bliss as far as I am concerned.
Seven years is a long time, yet it’s no time at all. I think that a great marriage is one that only gets better with age and the years seem to pass so quickly that you can’t believe how many have gone by because it feels like you just had your first date only a moment before. Being with someone whom you can always laugh with, even through all the crap that gets thrown at you is more precious than any wealth or bauble you could have. I am so thankful and grateful that I have Shawn in my life and because of his strength and support I can handle anything that gets thrown my way.
I love you, Pook. For all of forever.
(Even if we can’t seem to ever take a proper photo of ourselves. 
)
Every year I write something terribly mushy and sweet about how happy I am to be married to the man I love more and more every day. I am not running out of mushy, sweet things to say but I feel like I say the same things over and over again. This doesn’t make them less true, I just feel like a broken record. I can’t help being so in love and happy. These feelings continue to increase every day rather than diminish. I want to spend 70 years with this man, like my grandparents spent together (this July 12 would have been their 70th anniversary had they not passed away. However they would have been a couple for 73 years. I find that truly amazing.)
