Celebrations

Last weekend was a big one. I already wrote about our Mutomboko celebrations, but we had some other events as well.

Tom turned 46 on Thursday (it was also Henry's and Janet's birthday, as well as a nanny) and we celebrated with some of the visitors who had already begun arriving for Mutomboko.

He was very specific about the cake he wanted; loading up images from Google to make sure I didn't misunderstand him. It had to be chocolate cake with chocolate frosting--but not chocolate ganache--thick and fluffy, with a 'stucco' pattern. I got to use some dark chocolate from Belgium so that was really special.

I think I did an OK job. We forgot to buy birthday candles, and since we can't simply run out to the store, a tea candle had to stand in.

Then, on Monday Tom and I celebrated 24 years of marriage. We were too tired to do much to celebrate, but I presented him with a special homemade gift. I'm going to do a special post about that since it was a Pinterest Project. And I Nailed It!

I had a moment of feeling old when I realized that Tom and I have been married as long as, or longer than most of our volunteers have been alive. Yikes!

Overall though I feel really proud of us for making it so far. We were married younger than many people feel is right, we had premature twin daughters born before we had been married a year, we had four children by our fourth anniversary, we have been through incredible amounts of stressful events in the last 12 years, and thanks to God it has only brought us closer.
 

Reunited in June after my 3 months in the U.S.

We look forward to many more years together. We're two years away from our youngest child's 18th birthday, and we are excited about what the next 24-plus years will bring our way.

It's a good thing I wrote this post a few days ago (we lost power one day, and then I was in Mansa for the next two days so I couldn't publish it), because that day I had to help Tom pack for his three week trip to the U.S. (he flies out tomorrow), and I'm sure many of you know that packing with your spouse is not the greatest thing for marital harmony. I sure will miss him though. Hurry home, darling.

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