worth mentioning: my parents

I completely failed to address a momentous occasion that occurred this past week. My parents celebrated 30 years of marriage on 14 August. That’s 30 years of hanging out with each other all the time, raising kids, dogs, (and at one point, a duck), kids that acted like dogs, and picking up after kids and dogs.

All joking aside, I am extremely privileged to have such wonderful parents. I recall days when Dad had more hair and Mom had three toddlers in tow at any given time, two of them crying (on behalf of all the times it was me crying, I’m sorry Mom). Oh, the things they’ve been through…

• Orchestrating a family of seven for church every Sunday, and getting there on time (or seven minutes late)

• Single-handedly raising five children through:
   * Diapers
   * Surly childhood days
   * Sugar highs
   * Cooking lessons (24/7 supervision of the stove)
   * Surly Pre-teen years
   * Surly Post-teen years
   * Etc.

• About 23948719234 birthday parties

• Talking their girls out of wearing boys’ clothes, talking their boys out of wearing girls’ clothes

• Driving lessons

• Plenty of car accidents (I will take the blunt of the blame on this one)

• Buying a lake cabin, knocking said lake cabin down, building a new lake cabin

• Moving kids around (or in some cases, kids moving back in 🙂 )

• Florida, New York, and Oregon family vacations (In Dad’s words, “We were there!”)

• One child’s wedding

• Two minivans

• Three dogs, 90 billion turtles

• Four other childrens’ breakups (not mentioning any names here)

• Proms x 1001349

• Five high school graduations

• Zero children joining the circus

• Coordinating 2349587 dentist, doctor, chiropractor, and orthodontist appointments as well as emergency room visits

• There isn’t even a number that exists to explain how many times the toilet overflowed

• Etc.

I haven’t been around all 30 years to witness the extent of their marriage, but from what I have seen I am completely enamored. I could only hope to be as lucky to someday experience their kind of love and happiness.

Without them…there would be no me!