15 Years of Wedded Bliss

The Travel Wife and I celebrated 15 years of marriage on August 14th and decided to host a pool party / bbq with friends. We ended up with about 30 people hanging out on the back deck watching the Travel Kids and friends frolic in the pool while I worked the grill for about 3 hours straight. No one left hungry!

Travel Wife and I made it through 15 years for several reasons:

• I am good at starting something and she is good at finishing something. So I get us going and just about the time I am ready to call it quits, she pushes us to the finish.
• We both learned early on in our marriage that you should edify your spouse - especially to other people. When I worked in a store, the cashiers loved the fact that when my wife called I always said "Hi, Gorgeous". I still call her that to this day. Christmas time is a great time to work in my department because Travel Wife goes into "super baking mode" which means cookies and brownies almost daily for my coworkers. I tell people that my wife is like Michael Jordan (only not bald, or black, or particularly skilled at basketball) - just an all around awesome wife. I tell them that when in "super baking mode", she is like Michael Jordan in the playoffs - a seemingly impossible increase in greatness and ability.
• We enjoy the same TV shows, movies, books, etc. There is no "I want to watch my show..." fight - we just have to decide if we want to watch House, Chuck, Heroes, CSI, The Office, Sarah Connor Chronicles or Magic basketball.
• We share our money. None of this "my money pays for this, and your money pays for that" crap. Even though I have always supplied most of the income (and all of it for several years), we have always paid for everything out of one account. What's ours is ours.
• We don't use the D-word - divorce. We never use that as a threat to manipulate the other. It's not on the table.
• We have a strong faith. We study our faith and learn from each other all the time. I pray every day that God will help me be the husband she needs to follow His plan for her life.
• We just like being around each other. Some times, it's just sitting next to each other while we read and other times it takes a conscious effort to engage in that "hard" conversation about money or health or other life issues.

She has a blog where you can see actual photos from the ceremony. You will also learn more about my "Clark Kent" persona - who I am when I am not traveling the United States.

Now I have to get to work on the next 15 years....