It's nearly 9:00pm on Thursday, May 27th, and I'm in a hotel. Exactly 4 years ago, we were at a hotel too, although not quite under the same circumstances. Four years ago we were in a grand ballroom dancing the night away and celebrating our Wedding Day with our 120-ish guests. It was an amazing, amazing day that I will never forget.
Today, our 4th Anniversary, is also a day that I will never forget, and one that I hope will ultimately be the beginning of a huge turning point in our lives {more on that later, for now just keep your fingers crossed and send up some prayers that things will work out for us.} We woke up early this morning, got ourselves and Caleb together, and started the drive from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh where we'll be spending most of Memorial Day weekend. What was supposed to be a 3.5 hour drive according to the GPS, ended up being a 4.5 hour drive. Why you may ask? Well, before heading out, we had to make a quick stop at the grocery store. I just ran in to grab the few things we needed, and Andrew stayed in the car with Caleb. While he was waiting, he pulled the slip of paper that I had written all of the addresses and phone numbers on for our trip out of my bag, and entered in the address for our hotel...or so he thought...
So on to the turnpike we went heading west. We quickly informed Caleb that we'd be going through some tunnels on the drive not realizing how obsessed he'd become with a word that I'm pretty sure he didn't yet understand. Fortunately for us, we discovered that the tunnels are actually a lot closer to Harrisburg than we thought. So we didn't have to tide him over too long. Once he figured out what a tunnel was, he wanted them even more. Thank goodness this town is crawling with tunnels! We've been through at least 7 today alone. Caleb was an angel the entire way, even taking a 1 hour nap mid-way through the drive.
Three miles from our "destination," and quickly nearly lunch time, we realized that we were not heading to the hotel, but to a location that was actually IN the city.
"Andrew, did you type in the address of the restaurant instead of the hotel?"
"I don't know, did I?"
Honestly, I can't really fault him. The name of the restaurant included the word "Inn." No big deal. Remember, we have the GPS. So we stopped to enter the address of the actual hotel only to discover that there is apparently construction on every single major road in downtown Pittsburgh and the GPS had no idea how to get us to where we needed to be. Somehow, an hour later we made it to the hotel with a mostly happy toddler with a full belly, and we were able to check in early.
We had planned to meet with someone to tour the city and outlying areas, so after a short stint in our hotel room we headed back out for what ended up to be another 2 hours in the car. I can't even begin to tell you how great Caleb was for most of that. He got a little fussy on the way home, but we entered a tunnel just in time. I couldn't have asked for a better child. Unfortunately, since the tour lasted a lot longer than we expected, and because we didn't want Caleb to have to be in the car any longer today, we had to cancel our dinner reservations at the nice restaurant with an amazing view overlooking the city.
Instead we headed across the street from our hotel to the mall where we ate at the food court, got cookies at Mrs. Fields to take home for dessert, and then followed that up with some after dinner entertainment by taking Caleb to the mall play area to get out some energy. He had a blast!
Right now, Caleb is FINALLY, sleeping soundly in his crib on the other side of the hotel room. Andrew and I are sitting on the bed next to one another in the dark as we watch DVDs, surf the internet, and munch on chocolate chip cookies. The people in the room next door have their TV blaring {Greta Van Susteren on what I assume is CNN}, our room is directly across from the elevator where we hear the familiar "ding" every few minutes accompanied by random group conversations, and just as I started typing this sentence there was loud banging coming from the room above us almost as if the people up there are practicing for Riverdance.
If someone had told me four years ago that this is how I would spend my anniversary, I might have thought twice about getting married in the first place {ok, not really}. But, after living this day in light of everything that has happened in our lives over the past four years, and in particular the past four months, it was the perfect way for us to celebrate where we are in our lives today...a family of three working together to navigate life's unexpected challenges, always looking forward to whatever the future holds for us, all while trying desperately to remember that life is lived in moments - in the here and now.
Happy Anniversary to my best very friend, loving and faithful husband, and the best father I could have ever imagined for our children! I love you, Andrew.
