The Truth About Anniverseries

Anniversaries are supposed to be a celebration of love and romance, right? Well, after 5 years here's the breakdown:

Year One Plan: Go camping for the weekend and enjoy romantic campfires, starlight and long walks in the woods.
Year One Reality: Were welcomed to the campsite by tornado sirens, sat in a tent for 48 hours because of non-stop rain, dealt with mounting interpersonal fustrations, and embraced fun episodes of diarrhea.

Year Two Plan: Year one anniversary sucked. Let's just go out for lunch.
Year Two Reality: We went to lunch. I think I had a taco.

Year Three Plan: Lunch worked well. Let's just do that again.
Year Three Reality: Repeat Last Year

Year Four Plan: Camping on our anniversary really wasn't all that bad. Let's try that again.
Year Four Reality: Got chased by tornadoes again, sat in a restaurant for 6 hours waiting for the rain to end, got back to a tent with an inch of water in it, so gave up and went home.

Year Five Plan: Camping on our anniversary doesn't seem to work for us. Let's try going to a quite beautiful lakeside town called Port Washington.
Year Five Reality: Woke up and discovered a tick had made a home in my leg and kind of freaked out. We got that sorted out and then headed out to Port Washington. There we discovered the town was not as peaceful as we anticipated. It had been overrun by Pirates. (Which to be honest, was totally cool. It wasn't what we expected, but it was kind of fun seeing everyone dressed up and acting really goofy. And considering our track record with romantic anniversaries...seemed to fit right in).

So we don't have a track record for the most romantic anniversaries, but I wouldn't trade them for the world. As my husband was pulling the tick out of my leg, I couldn't help but laugh and think "this is true love". Learning to stick with each other through sickness, ticks, unexpected weather, soggy tents, and pirates may not be "romantic", but it's love. And I'd much rather take love.

As far as the pirates...they were pretty cool. Matt took some great pictures of them and posted them on his blog: http://fpphoto.blogspot.com/2011/06/port-of-pirates.html