Our 20th Anniversary

Today Mike and I celebrated our 20th anniversary.  I feel so lucky.  I have no idea what I did to be so blessed, but I'm very grateful.  Anyone who knows anything about Mike knows how lucky I am.

Mike & Stephanie

Mike stayed home from work today.  He finally had a dentist appointment!  He has a cracked tooth and will need a root canal.  I can't remember everything that is wrong with Mike's teeth.  I know his allergies have been a part of some of the pain.  Hopefully they will do an excellent job on the root canal and that this will solve all of his pain problems.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Maysen had her statistics class tonight.  She drove Mike and I to her class.  We then waited for her at the Village Inn across the street.  Not a super fancy place for an anniversary dinner, but it was close to Maysen's class and this is where Mike gave me a diamond heart ring before he left on his mission.  Well, it was at the Provo Village Inn.  He also pretended to propose to me at a Village Inn.  He thinks he's hilarious.  He ended up officially proposing to me by the rock we are standing next to in the above picture.

We are (hopefully) doing something amazing for our 20th anniversary. For our 10th anniversary we took our three kids on a cruise.  They randomly had an entire week off of school in September.  Our anniversary was right smack dab in the middle of it.  That was fun. This time we are most likely going to be able to do something better. We are in the process of buying my Grandpa's cabin.  My Uncle John needed to sell Grandpa's cabin after he died.  Well, Uncle John owned more of the cabin than Grandpa did.  We were hoping to go in on the cabin with other family members.  Maybe own 1/6th of the cabin.  No one else (but my brothers) wanted to go in with us.  We then started talking to my brothers to see if they would help us pull this off.  All of them were willing to contribute some, but three of them live far away and rarely get to the cabin.  It didn't make sense for them to put their entire inheritance from Grandpa in.  Mike and I started talking about trying to buy the entire thing ourselves.  We are working on the financing right now and think we will be able to do it.  My brothers might take the money they are going to get from the sell of the cabin and buy some 4-wheelers or snowmobiles.  Mike and I definitely won't have money for toys for awhile!  We told the kids, "New college plan.  You all get scholarships!"

This cabin means so much to us.  My little family had two favorite places in the entire world.  The cabin and Mike's childhood home. Mike's house has been sold and demolished.  We couldn't bear the thought of losing the cabin.  We figure if the cabin becomes too hard financially we could always sell it.  Then we would know we tried everything we could do.  Our kids are really excited about it.  All of them wanted us to keep the cabin.  Maysen says, "It's the last place of my childhood."  Crazy that she's right.  It's also the last place of my childhood.  When our kids are married and have kids of their own, how cool will it be to say, "Your great-great grandma spent a lot of time here.  She loved it."  The cabin was a sanctuary for my brothers and I after my mom died.  It was a place where we could be together and felt like we belonged.  My mom loved it here.  I love that.  Anyways, keep your fingers crossed for us!  We feel like we are making a good decision. Logically it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it feels right.  I hope it feels that way because it is the right thing to do, not because I want it so badly!  I guess only time will tell.  I'm so glad Mike loves this place as much as I do.