Our lucky 13th wedding anniversary

How do you celebrate 13 years of marriage?

On Saturday we got out of the house together without our boys for a few hours to go to an event through John’s job. I wore a red fascinator, we enjoyed adult conversation, and we watched a steeplechase race. It was lovely.

The next day we took our boys along with us for a special dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Dimitri’s in Catonsville, Md. Our older son announced that it was our anniversary, and we were treated to a complimentary brownie sundae for the table.

Horse racing and a brownie sundae? That would be hard to top. During my weekly grocery run, I had picked out what I thought was the ideal anniversary card for my husband of 13 years and counting. On the spur of the moment, I bought a few scratch-off tickets. I knew the boys would enjoy them, and they seemed fun for our “lucky 13th.”

Today, on our anniversary morning, Leo and Daniel couldn’t wait to scratch off the lottery tickets, but I made them wait until their father opened his card.

As they were waiting, it occurred to Daniel that his father might not actually have a card for me. So he ran to get a piece of card stock and created a card. And, of course, his card was amazing and far superior to anything I could have found in the grocery store.

I had told the boys that if we won $50,000 in the lottery, we would all take the day off. Unluckily—or luckily, depending on how you look at it—we only won $15.

In the evening, after our boys went to sleep, I worked on finishing the dishes while John did the laundry in the basement. As I was working, I thought about how he does all the laundry, all the yard work, all the financial stuff, all the hard work in the household that I can’t figure out.

Me? I do all the cooking and the school paperwork and the blogging.

We may not have won $50,000 in the lottery. But on our 13th anniversary (and every other day, too), I feel like the luckiest person in the world.