Life's a beach...

Yesterday marked our 35th wedding anniversary.  Why, yes, I WAS a child bride.  :)  Thank you for asking.

When I met him, Carey was listening to country music, and wearing sharply-creased blue jeans and a cowboy hat (and for the most part he still is, though he's relaxed the starch a bit).  Shortly before I met him, however, he was a surfer...with shaggy hair, cutoffs, and a long board.  Our first date (back in the olden days) was to see the movie Jaws.  The next day we went to the beach with a group of friends.  He's always enjoyed watching televised surfing competitions.  So when I saw the previews for Soul Surfer, I thought that would be something fun, and kind of nostalgic, for us to do together.

We enjoyed it.  It had really good surfing footage.  I liked the story more than he did.  I thought that what could have been made overly dramatic, was instead treated with a very light hand.  I took away the impression that the family didn't over-dramatize things in real life either, instead dealing with whatever comes along.  It depicted the family's faith in a way that I think will make believers happy to see, without turning off non-believers.  Overall, it had an extremely positive message...that passion, hard work, and determination can be their own reward.

So back to our anniversary.  Like the above photo indicates, I am giving thanks for the past three and a half decades (!) spent with my sweetie.  Like the ocean's surf, sometimes there is smooth sailing, and sometimes it's choppy.  Thankfully for us the real storms have been few and far between.  Mostly it's been a day at the beach...playing, walking hand in hand, searching for treasures that wash up now and then, sometimes squabbling like hungry gulls...but always rinsing off the sand and going home together.