seven years already?

jesse and i celebrated our seven year anniversary last saturday. way back in the year 2000, two kids got married on july 28th and here we are now - all grown up, with two children, a small but beautiful old house, two loud and sleepy cats, and all of the baggage that comes with two broken and imperfect people trying to live life together while honoring and glorifying God. last year (2006) was the toughest one yet for us as a couple. when you add the responsibilities of parenting to the mix, it becomes more difficult and more pressing to work through your issues. last weekend we spent four days away from our children and were reacquainted with each other. i told jesse on thursday night, "i forgot what it was like to just talk to you." we go on a date almost every week but sometimes i think half of that time is just unwinding from the kids and catching our breath from the busyness of life. although we missed our little ones, i think this was the best thing we have done for ourselves since luca was born and it will definitely be a priority to do at least once a year (i am actually pulling for once very six months but we'll see).

we chose to go to champaign to use our good friends empty home. what a blessing to stay there! we spent our first year and half as a married couple living in champaign-urbana (not to mention going to school at the u of i), so we enjoyed visiting favorite restaurants and walking around the neighborhoods and parks. so manu things are the same and just as many have changed. on sunday, jesse reflected that he still knows chambana better than bloomington-normal. probably all that free time (that is so precious and undervalued) you have when your in college to explore and wander. i did suffer through some bad headaches and even had a migraine most of friday, a major bummer to lose some of our time. but when you have no babysitters to worry about, no naptimes to schedule around, and no children to wake up and feed in the morning - you have amazing flexibility. we went to a movie at 9:45pm - what rebels! we went salsa dancing at 10pm - crazy! we slept in until 9am - unbelievable!




enjoying pastries and tea at our new favorite bakery, pekara. they make a yummy burek on saturdays.



we saw a beautiful movie, once, on friday night. a modern day musical of sorts - we bought the soundtrack later in the week.

jesse playing guitar in the sunken garden at allerton - this is where and how he proposed to me in october '99.

walking the grounds of allerton - jesse stares down the fu dogs.



jesse finally captured the monarch on the flower - we ended our weekend at meadowbrook park. this is where we spent our first anniversary back in '01. thankfully it did not pour on us this year. we walked through the organic vegetable gardens - the sunflowers were enormous.

i was incredibly excited to see luca and gia on sunday evening. when they drove up in my parents' car, i walked out to meet them. luca cried, "mama, mama here." although i could tell he was happy to see me, he did not want to leave "cece's car." he had such a good time with my family, so my feelings were definitely not hurt.

my first thought when hugging both of them - "they smell different." at first i wrote this off to being overly emotional, but then realized my mom just uses different fabric softener.