3 Month Anniversary

Sunday, as E and I were getting ready to drive our kids our junior bridesmaid, N,  and junior groomsmen, S, down to camp, E realized that it was our three month anniversary. I'm not surprised that I didn't realize it sooner, E has always been a wiz with dates and numbers and the time has passed so quickly. I'm not sure where these last nine years of our relationship have gone but these last few weeks where we've been raising Milou and hosting N and S have zoomed by at light speed.

Milou is already 26 pounds!

Last Thursday we picked N and S up at the airport and went straight to the Aquarium of the Pacific. They're in that place where they're not quite teenagers yet but they're not really children anymore, one moment they're ohmygosh30yearsold mature and the next they're closer to a tantruming 6 year old. Luckily, we had a great time at the aquarium with no meltdowns and much appreciation for the tropical birds, puffer fish and moon jellies. I only got minimal complaints when I told them I wouldn't buy $3 one ounce cups of nectar for the birds and although I could tell S wasn't happy, he was able to be resourceful and use nectar flowers to attract the birds. They worked better than the cups anyway (what bird would be attracted to a plastic cup??) and I got approximately 284329874634 pictures of them holding the birds. 

The next day was spent at play dates and a friends BBQ, where they ran themselves into exhaustion with a pack of kids I've watched be born and grow up. Some are now taller than I am and other's have changed so much that they're nearly impossible to recognize as the soft,  bow mouthed newborns and bright eyed toddlers they used to be. I did a double take when I saw a little boy I used to watch at 5 as a grown up 12 year old with a mop of shaggy hair and a "Death to Humans" t-shirt. His little sister who I watched as a baby is now a little girl, running around and playing rough'n'tumble with the boy. As an adult, you don't realize how much can change in 7 years until you look at a child.

Beanbag Battle

Captain Australia

Ziggy watches N and S battle

S and T battle for the fort

Saturday ended up being a lazy day, although we started out with grandiose plans for visiting the LA Science Center. I think the BBQ the day before wore them out a bit, so instead we watched movies, went to the mall, and went out to our favorite mexican restaurant. Although I was hoping to get them into bed early, they hadn't seen the 1980's version of Batman so E, S and N piled into our bed and watched batman kick butt until midnight when we foisted them into their own beds and spent a good half hour giggling back and forth through the wall. When N called from her bed in her squeakiest sci-fi voice "Do you know who the fiend is? ....it's the LAXATIVE!" and we all burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter at this nonsense while S called "In Bed!" (thank god they still don't know why this is funny), I realized we had reached the that time and it was time to sleep.

N and S's awesome camp

Dropping them off at camp was a kind of bittersweet experience. I know they'll have a fabulous time although we'll miss them while they're gone. S acclimated pretty much instantly as soon as his friends got there but N took a little bit longer. We walked around the camp with her for about 2 hours and she still wasn't quite ready for us to go. I think it's going to be a hormonal summer for her and I felt like a giant meanie leaving her there when she wasn't ready to let go. We made up the secret word "pumpernickel" for her to write to us in letters if she was having a tough time, like "man they served us pumpernickel bagels for breakfast" instead of saying "i hate it i'm having a terrible time". Home sickness usually comes in bouts so hopefully hers are few and far between and they both have a great time.

Beautiful Gazebo

After dropping off the kiddos, E and I went to visit his stepdad G at his house where we got married. It was a little surreal to see it looking like a house instead of our wedding, but he kept up the gazebo we had our ceremony under and has a little table and chairs beneath it.  I really can't believe it's already been three months since we said our I do's. E says it feels more like a few weeks, but we've been together so long he doesn't really count in months anymore. I keep thinking of all the things we still have to do like send more thank you notes, lose the few pounds we gained so we can take our day after photos, choose photos for our wedding album, etc etc. If life goes this quickly without kids, I can't imagine how it will fly once we have our own! For now I want to try and focus more on enjoying each other and our surrogate children N and S. Oh, and getting out those remaining thank you notes >_<

Wedding Shards Mezuzzah

After careful consideration, E and I decided to have a mezuzah made out of our broken wedding glass. Since we're not glass artists, we contacted Enid Traisman to have our gorgeous mezuzzah made and she went above and beyond our expectations. Because we didn't have that much glass from the champagne glass we smashed, we sent along a broken blue mason jar as well.

Enid Traisman's Etsy Shop

Item: Wedding Shards Mezuzzah

Price: $45 + $4.95 shipping + ($5.00 shipping for the frame + $7.00 shipping the glass to her)

Little known fact: you can't fuse glass from two different sources together without them cracking. So no champagne-glass-mason-jar-mezuzzah. Boo.

Luckily, we had just enough glass to make the mezuzzah. Because we love blue, she added some tint and beautiful little jewels to spice it up. She sent it to us packed in a beautiful little box with instructions on how to hand it but somehow the post office managed to break it, right down the middle.  We were pretty broken up about it since we'd been anticipating its arrival but Enid was able to fuse it back together for us with little lasting effect.

Mezuzah and frame before fusion 

Throughout the process, Enid sent us progress photos so we could see how everything was coming together. Since we couldn't use the mason jar glass in our mezuzzah, Enid used the extra glass to make us a gorgeous photo frame.  She only charged us shipping for it and included a little acrylic holder at no charge :)

Frame with Enid's doggy in it!

Our Mezuzzah, Before it Broke

Top Down View

I love how the little jewels are raised! A few got slightly skewed when she fused it back together. 

The back depression where the scroll goes

So what does everyone think? I love our mezuzzah and think its a perfect way to make your wedding glass something special that you'll see everyday :)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Turn and face the strange)

It seems that everywhere I look, people feel that marriage changes everything. Even after multiple years of living together (the royal we-ers proclaim) being married changes your relationship. They can't say how or when or why, but are all very adamant about an eventual change.

I saw one of these microcars on HGTV yesterday. Love!

Well, E and I have now been married about 13 days and thus far I have to say that nothing has changed. That is to say, if you look at the surface, of course things have undergone a so called change. I wear two rings on my finger, he wears a different band. We now have two shared credit cards and two shared bank accounts. My last name is now his and we call each other hubby and wifey (good job on that one E...). But aside from the superficial, neither E nor I have felt any real relationship changes. We got married, cleaned up supplies, spent the night in a hotel, cleaned up more supplies and drove home. All in all it was a busy but productive weekend and we had a good time visiting with all our friends and family. I don't know what either of us were supposed to expect, the clouds to part so the sun could suddenly shine down new meaning on our relationship? A sudden desire to pick up the bath towel from where E drops it on the floor or a new tolerance for him farting in bed? I would appreciate him closing the caps of bottles in the shower but we're working on that. While I'm sure this is a bit premature to call, thus far E and I don't really feel like our relationship has changed. We knew 100% of each other before getting married and we still do, there have been no unexpected twists or surprises.

One thing that people seem to focus on is the idea of a honeymoon phase. Honestly, I'm pretty sure our honeymoon phase ended sometime in 2006. We haven't been the kind of "new love stars in their eyes" couple for a long time but we've somehow maintained our love and attraction. When we walk down the street we still hold hands, we still cuddle and laugh and go out on dates. We don't wish we were back in those cant-keep-our-hands-off-each-other teenage hormone years because what we have now is better and we certainly spend more time talking ;)  

Playing house....I hate that phrase!

My hopes for our marriage come more from the outside than from within. My family has seen us as "playing house" for years, despite the fact that our relationship has outlasted almost all of theirs. In addition to making legal what we already shared, I would selfishly like some recognition from my family. E and I work hard to make our relationship thrive and I'm tired of hearing them belittle it. I don't expect their recognition to change anything but it would be nice. Moving out would also be nice and while we're obsessively refreshing craigslist and house hunting, we have no real intentions of moving out anytime soon.

What about you? Did marriage change your relationship? If so, was it a slow change or an immediate one?