15 year anniversary ramble

Last Wednesday we celebrated our 15 year anniversary. Being the 15th of August, it seemed like a pretty significant milestone in two ways. 15 years and on the 15th. I had planned on taking a trip to Hawaii for a week, but before I made the plans, I got laid off. So, we just went to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. I don't know why we go to Italian on our anniversary - we don't really seek out Italian restaurants normally. We like trying new weird different things most of the time. Maybe on such a significant day we just want to have something familiar so we can concentrate on each other.

The restaurant was Bella Saratoga and is housed inside a small Victorian style house on Big Basin Way in Saratoga. It was very quaint and quite busy for a weekday evening. (Everything is always busy and packed to the brim in this area it seems...) We ordered a full bottle of champaign this year - usually we just get a split. The waitress carded us, which we both found amusing. Occasionally we get carded in the checkout lane of the grocery, but not too often in a restaurant. Having worked in restaurants for a few years, we know you're meant to card anyone who looks 35 or younger, but since we are both over 35, we thought we had moved beyond that point.

We started a tally of things, which we do every year, but somehow it seemed more poignant this time because it was a multiple of 5.

15 years married.
18 countries visited.
25 states visited.
2 countries lived in.
7 states or prefectures lived in.
10 apartments lived in.
5 cats in the family.
3 languages learned. (English doesn't count)
200+ miles hiked together.

The fact that we've been married for 15 years makes people laugh and they always ask if we got married when we were 12. I don't know why people always say 12 specifically; it's weird. Maybe we look 28. This would be the best thing ever for AJ since getting close to "the hill"seems to be a big worry for her. Is it a girl thing? Is it American culture to only appreciate the young and not respect the old? These are bigger questions for another post I think. For now it suffices to say we have been married for 15 years and it's been pretty good overall.

In my little head there seems to be a marker of 26 or 27 years to "beat" since that's when my parents got divorced and we were married at around the same age (young, but not 12!). I don't think I consider it a challenge/competition to be better than them - but that's probably not a healthy way to think about marriage in general - so I'll just write it off as a nagging concern in the back of my head.

Well - that's a little too much introspection for me on one post. I shall now go play a video game or something to get back to basics. :)