Three Years, Three Things

Ben and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on June 15. YAY.  For this year's anniversary post, we each answered a set of questions, a few that came from outside sources, about our relationship.  This post is a long one, so feel free to skip to the end and watch a clip from one of Ben's and my favorite movies and our favorite filmmaker.  ***You'll also be able to hear the song we danced our first dance to playing in the background LOL***

Three favorite things about being married:
Jewel: I love the feelings of safety and security in a relationship that come with marriage.  And I like how I can say whatever I want to Ben and he's not judgmental. That might just be unique to Ben, but I do think there should be open lines of communication in every marriage.

Ben: It's such a comfort knowing you can come home and someone is going to listen to you gripe about work or ask you if everything is OK and generally BE THERE.  Jewel is so tied into the DNA of my life now that if I have to spend a few days away from her I pretty much forget how to function like a respectable member of society.  Two other great things about being married have to be the financial security and the division of labor.  I might never cook again.

ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND 2016

Three favorite events from the past year:
Jewel:  I'm happy that right after celebrating our second anniversary, we went under contract on our house.  And around the same time, we found out I was pregnant. We know how that turned out. Still, I look back on those days and feel nothing but gratitude for the chance to experience such a precious time.  Then after my miscarriage, I swore that I would pretty much go "YOLO" on the rest of the year. So every moment--from spending $200 on champagne for our NYE party and taking two trips to the Caribbean within one month of each other---were my favorite moments.  That's probably more than three things, but whatever.

HOMEOWNERS: DAY 1

Ben:  I had a blast when we went to see the Kansas City Chiefs play in Baltimore.  It wasn't a particularly good game, but Jewel went with me and cheered so much that she fell asleep within minutes of starting the drive home.  Buying a house also makes the list; it has been almost a year and it still feels surreal.  Lastly,  there were so many great hikes and dinners out that I look back on fondly. Jewel always picks out the best things to do.

Three things you like about your spouse:
Jewel:  I love Ben's sense of humor.  I also like the way Ben looks.  Solid second thing.
And I like how Ben is really good at talking me down from the ledge. He always reminds me that there's no point worrying about things we can't control.

Ben:  I have a love/hate relationship with Jewel's excitable personality.  She gets this lightning in her eyes over the smallest things sometimes, and while there are moments when I wish she would just calm down, it's highly endearing.  Another good thing about Jewel is she genuinely cares about me.  She can tell if I'm tired, sad, injured, or pretty much if there is anything wrong with me.  She picks up on it like a drug-sniffing dog and immediately offers to help.  She even cares about my cholesterol and modified her cooking to try to lower it, which leads me to number three.  The girl can cook.  I know I can never realistically leave her because I'm so spoiled by her preparing all of our meals.

NYE 2016

Three things you dislike:
Jewel: Ben's memory.  If it's not football- or work-related, he doesn't remember anything.  I also dislike how stubborn he is when it comes to me suggesting that he write things down so that he can remember them.  He won't do it.  And I dislike how...Ben seems to never be hungry.  I'm always hungry.

Ben: Jewel takes four times as long to prepare for bed than I do.  Even if I'm already in bed she turns on every single light, makes as much noise as possible, and then wants to read in bed or talk for 15 minutes.  She also has lengthy conversations with the cat, and won't stop peeing with the door open.

OBLIGATORY CAT PIC

Three favorite things from the wedding:
Jewel: From what I remember, I really enjoyed our "first look," seeing each other before the wedding.  I also enjoyed the actual ceremony.  And I think I was happy when it was over?  I just know I was really exhausted by the end of the night, and I didn't eat any of our wedding desserts.

Ben: It sounds lame, but Jewel looked so pretty.  I was staring at her the whole time.  Its a big bonus to your wedding day when your wife looks super hot.  I also liked how our wedding was relatively big.  we had about 180 people and I got to chat up people I hadn't seen in a while in a really unique setting.  The details of the wedding also need mentioning.  Jewel gave me free reign to wear what I wanted, pick the venue I liked, plan lots of the music and generally put my footprint on the day. 

Three things you would do differently if you planned the wedding today:
Jewel:  I think I would have had it outside. LOL I know that's ridiculous because Virginia is really hot in the summer.  I also would have used a different caterer. We went to a friend's wedding a few years ago where they served the best wedding food ever:  fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.  YEP.  And lastly, this kind of goes against the whole outdoors vibe, but maybe I would have had a "black tie" wedding and made everyone dress up.

Ben:  I'm kind of cheap.  So even though I really liked our wedding, we probably could have skimmed some overhead.  We should have allotted more time for talking to guests, too.  We didn't actually make it to every single table.  Oops.  Lastly, I would have changed Jewel's "walking down the aisle" song to the Jurassic Park theme song.  

Three things you're looking forward to in the fourth year:
Jewel:  I'm looking forward to going to Yosemite, and the hikes we're going to do in preparation for that.  I'm also looking forward to going to see Hamilton.......in nine months! LOL

Ben: Jewel assures me that my upcoming birthday will be one to remember.  We're also planning to catch another Chiefs game this year. And finally, our house is going to look like an actual home as we gradually wrap up painting and furnishing the final areas.  Man cave coming soon!