15 years

Celebrated our 15th anniversary this year with a weekend getaway to Regina & stayed at the Royal Saskatchewan Hotel. Huge thanks to our friends who last minute offered to watch the kids for us (change of plan as Joel's parents were landlocked in snow). Thankful we were still able to go! Enjoyed no time restraints or obligations & hit up the bookstore, the record store, a movie & some donuts.

"You know you could live

a better life than you do,

be softer, kinder.

& maybe this year you will

be able to do it.

There is no way to be

sufficiently grateful for

the gifts we are given,

no way to speak the Lord's name

often enough, though we do try.

& Heaven's windows in the north country,

now spring has come,

are opened wide."

(North Country, Mary Oliver)

"We have stood

from year to year

before the spectacle of our lives

with joined hands.

The storm unfolds.

Lightning plays about the edges

of the clouds.

The sky to the north is placid,

blue in the afterglow

as the storm piles up.

It is a flower that will soon reach

the apex of its bloom.

We danced, in our minds,

& read a book together.

You remember?"

(Asphodel, William Carlos Williams)