Moving On

Wednesday was our four-year wedding anniversary. While time has flown by, it seems like we've been married longer than just four years. We've done a lot and learned a lot about each other...and while there's still much more to do and to learn, I'm completely happy where we are right now. And we're even more happy about our baby coming, the best thing that we will have accomplished in our four years together. So let's review:

We got married on July 9, 2004 and went on our Western Caribbean cruise for a week. When we got back, D continued with his job at Borders stocking books from 6am-2pm and I taught gym class for three weeks at West Hartford's Summer School and nannyed until we left on August 14th for Philadelphia.

Actually, there was an entire caravan of people who went to Philly with us to help set up all our new things in our new apartment. That was so much fun! I had a job interview the next week for a kindergarten teacher position, which I got right then and D started orientation at Temple Med School the following week. Thus started our new life together.

We managed to do a lot that first year, we were so excited to be living in the city with all it had to offer. We had a lot of visitors and managed to see the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the Philly Zoo, and other sites around the city. D also enjoyed showing everyone where Temple was in North Philly.

For our one-year anniversary, we went to Pocono Palace in the Poconos for the weekend. Since we checked in one day before our one year anniversary, we were treated like honeymooners. Between the free food, all the activities, and on-site entertainment we couldn't help but enjoy celebrating our one year of marriage.

We managed to stay quite busy during our four years in PA: We visited Lancaster where we went to the Sight and Sound Theater a few times...Hershey to see the town, the Chocolate Factory, and to revisit a favorite childhood pastime (amusement parks) at Hershey Park...Phillies Stadium...Wachovia Center at Christmastime to see Mannheim Steamroller...Fairmount Park for a number of BBQs with D's med class and a few picnics by ourselves....moving out of the city and closer to my work and to the hospital at which D would be doing rotations...trying new restaurants, my favorite was the little hole-in-the-wall Italian corner restaurant where everything was made from scratch on-premises...trips over the river to visit my great aunt in Jersey...Atlantic City a few times with different family members and by ourselves...bought Dougie...buried Dougie...Franklin Institute's IMAX to see Superman...jazz nights at Penn's Landing...Italian Festival where we saw Frankie Avalon...cookie bakes with our friends (well, the girls baked, the guys did guy things)...annual beach day at Ocean City, NJ with friends...the Navitiy Walk at a local church...taking care of the chicks...being apart for a month while D was in CT doing a rotation. Way too much to go on listing, but we definitely made the most of our short time there.

We went to Philly as newlyweds and left Philly with a Doctorate (D) and a Master's (me) and as a Mommy and a Daddy; with four years of med school and four years of teaching kindergarten behind us and an with entirely new future awaiting us. We went as two and left as three. In the past few months, D has graduated, we packed up and moved back to CT, we went house-hunting and found a house, and D started his residency. In the next few weeks, we will be officially buying the house, fixing it up while D is on his week-long vacation, and waiting (excitedly) for our newest family member to arrive. If we managed all this in four years, I'm excited to see what the next four, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years will bring.

I love you my David.