Happy Anniversary!

Dh and I celebrate an anniversary tomorrow. I'd have to do math to figure out which anniversary it is. I think the 9th, lol. We were married in 1999, so yeah, we're staring our 10th year together. In this day and age that seems like a huge milestone. I had been planning a big anniv. party for our 10th. I still may. I want to have a big old party. Our wedding was perfectly small. It took place in my mom and dad's back yard. It was inspired a bit by Robin Hood and The Princess Bride with a smattering of "us" in it. It was renaissancey and tons of fun. For our reception we went to Beni Hana which is a Japanese steak house restaurant where they cook at your table, throw knives, that kind of thing. Entertainment and dinner all balled into one. It was fun walking in there in our kilts and renaissance garb. We never could have afforded a big reception and such and this was perfect. Then we had a nice reception back here in MO where most of Neall's extended family was. Immediate family was all at the wedding, but extended family would have been too numerous to invite so we had a seperate ceremony and reception here at an aunt's house. It, too, was fabulous and beautiful. I felt very blessed.

Speaking of blessed. Congrats to my SIL who had her baby yesterday. He was a big guy at 9lbs, 9oz (although to some of you that will sound small, lol). His name is Daen, no further details on a name. I feel vindicated in that we are not the only family on Neall's side who chose interesting/unusual names for our children, lol. Neall's oldest brother is the only one who has chosen heard-of names for his children, lol. Daen is the newest addition. We'll see what Amy and Tony choose for their baby. I'll start working on them now and report back when I have them nailed down to something odd like Bathsheba ;).

Relatedly, I am surrounded now by young babies. Friends and family are obliging me with enough baby fixes that I still (surprisingly to myself) don't feel a twinge of sadness at being done with children. Of course, an 18mo up at 5am with diarrhea on a day I should have been able to sleep in a little bit does wonders to continue that trend, lol. Then having that followed up by him throwing the phone from the changing table onto my FOOT, yeah, that helped too, lol. So keep those babies coming friends and family. Who is next? Tara? Yeah, that works. Ooooooh, or Dannielle. Maybe Becka, or perhaps DAWN. Ivan is sugar-sweet, how can you not encourage another like him???

In other family news, we're planning a trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, (thieves who may be considering ramsacking our home while we're gone can just give up that thought now, you wouldn't want anything in here. If you don't believe me and decide to come anyway, will you do the dishes before you leave? TIA!). We had been planning a trip to Colorado for Christmas (somewhere around that time at least) since my mom's house is going to be empty which means we'd have housing, a kitchen, a refrigerator, and a central location for everyone to come and say hello. Neall is quite possibly looking at surgery for his foot though so we may have to shift things. We'd been trying to maximize his 4 days of vacation and stretch it through a holiday into 10 days off (it actually works out that way because of the fact that holidays fall on his normal days off, lol). We may have to stretch the Thanksgiving holiday and he'll recover in Ohio where I'd have plenty of help with children. If we do that it'll be the very end of the year when we go to CO, over the new year (and beyond), which is fine with me. Or, the surgeon could have some stupidly strict schedule and could screw this all up. We'll know more tomorrow.

More on the heel spur. This is not to be confused with plantar fasciitis. Well, it's sort of related, but online they use the term interchangeably. Neall actually has a bone spur that is pointy and of big enough size to cause significant discomfort. All other treatment over the last year and a half has done nothing to relieve the pain. On a scale of 1-10 Neall will often tell you it's a 10. I can't imagine what else this doc might have up his sleeve other than surgery. Neall has done every other type of treatment, most of it twice. So we shall see what he says tomorrow and plan accordingly. I'm looking forward to having my husband back. I miss his goofball grin.