Today marks 24 years since the day Dave and I got married. I think I can safely say no one thought we’d make it this far, back when we were just kids and getting married (because boy were we just kids!) But here we are, as happy as we’ve ever been in 24 years of marriage and 27 years together.

People will often ask, or at least pontificate, on what makes for long term successful marriages. I do believe that communication is key. But guess what else is? A pure unwillingness to give up. Whether it’s out of stubbornness, or faith, or just plain laziness, an unwillingness to rock the boat too hard is sometimes the saving grace of a marriage.

Those 24 years? Some of them sucked. I mean, truly sucked. And not just the world around us, but frankly the marriage in some ways too. It has not always been perfect, at times it hasn’t even been very good, but neither one of us was willing to admit defeat. And **eventually**, we figured it out. If we had given up when things weren’t going well, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be happier than we’ve ever been. We traded some really shitty years for what will hopefully be a lifetime of good ones

We have some friends and family going through hard times right now and I can’t help but wonder – what’s the right answer for them? Are things really unmendable, or do they just suck right now? Do you stick in and get through the crap to hopefully come out happier on the other side, or do you cut and run? I wish I knew. I wish they knew, wish it wasn’t a guessing game. I wish they had the gift of foresight. No such luck.

But for us, here we are. 24 years. And counting.

To celebrate we had a lovely weekend away. A friend took care of the dogs and the kid so we could just spend two days doing nothing but eating and laying in bed, or the giant tub, naked. (Phooey on your TMI!) It was the first time, just the two of us away, for like six years. It was DELIGHTFUL. Now we’re back to the real world, but it’s ok. We’re back to our life, and we love our life, so at least we have something wonderful to come back to. We have a lot to give thanks for, and that makes us damned lucky.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures from our lovely weekend. Have a great holiday everyone!