17 Years

Isabel and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary yesterday.

It's probably fitting that we were busy for most of the day, working around the house, running kid-related errands. That's the kind of life we have, and we think it's worth celebrating.

But we did have some time together when all of that busy-ness was done. The kids were fed, so we had a nice dinner together at home: filet mignon with mushrooms, roasted parmesan potatoes, and broccoli with garlic. Some red wine (which is good for me -- the medical journals say so). Chocolate cake to finish it off.

What was especially nice was that the kids made the cake themselves. They've helped us out enough times before to know how to make a cake. Peter was in charge, and John and Catherine only stormed out of the room a couple of times during the process. John lit the candles on the cake. Catherine was our waitress for dinner, setting the table and discreetly refilling our water glasses. (I tipped her a dollar.)

But maybe the most memorable part came as Peter was decorating the cake. The kids took turns covering the cake with chocolate frosting, but they wanted to write "HAPPY 17th," but had run out of frosting. They whipped up a quick frosting to write those few letters, basically out of powdered sugar and a little milk with some food coloring. Unfortunately, the consistency was a little thin, and the letters kind of ran together a bit. Peter realized there was a problem as he made the letter A in HAPPY -- the three lines that make up the "A" sort of spread together, closing that triangle-shaped gap in the middle. He cried out in frustration. We called into the kitchen to ask if he was OK, and, trying to explain that the triangular gap in the "A" was closing up, he said, "I'm having problems with the 'A' hole."

Isabel and I couldn't remember laughing that hard on our anniversary before. Would have made a great little Reader's Digest story except for that punch line.....