Our Silver Wedding Anniversary

Mr. and Mrs. Steven Paul Hake

I remember writing it out on paper to see how it looked.  Saying it out loud to hear how it sounded.  Relishing with all of my heart the reality of belonging to someone.  

It seems at once both so long ago and only yesterday.

Steve and I celebrated 25 years together by taking a romantic mini second honeymoon and then back home on the farm we had several local friends join us in celebrating with a small and simple ceremony in which we renewed and updated our wedding vows to one another and also made vows to our children.

While we made plans and prepared we had some wonderful conversations with the children sharing about our lives before they all were born.  I pulled out the box that holds my wedding gown, complete with the punch stain down the front from when we did the fancy, linked arms toast at our reception.  They wanted me to try on the veil and we talked about how marriage is a picture of Christ and His beloved Bride, the church, and the significance behind the veil and how Christ died to remove the veil that is between Him and His Bride.  I pulled out Steve's boutonniere that I saved from our wedding and he wore it again, 25 years later.

Some friends came early to take some portraits for us.  Our neighbors had an old wooden arbor they were throwing out and Ethan brought it home and he and Jordy did some repairs on it and Emily decorated it.  She wove some cream and peach roses, our wedding colors, together with some ivy to make a garland in our wedding colors and wound some cream tulle and tiny fairy lights to give the final touch to the beautiful arbor.

And we got an updated family portrait.

We had a table set up with our original wedding picture with our invitation as well as our marriage certificate and our blown glass cake topper.  We also set out the photo album of our wedding pictures.  Everyone enjoyed comparing then and now and making all the remarks about how young we looked in the pictures. 

After everyone arrived Steve shared a little about why we wanted to renew our wedding vows.  

When we first were married we wrote our own vows to each other.  We had such a shallow view of marriage back then.  Mostly we thought of it as a sort of contract that we made to one another in the presence of God and man.  We were sure that our relationship was rare and special and yet we hoped that we would be one of the lucky couples who's marriage would not end in divorce.

We have since come to believe that our marriage is more than this tick-on-a-tick relationship we started out with.  We now believe that the true purpose of our marriage is for God's glory and not for our own selfish gain.  We now believe that our marriage is a lifelong covenant between not just Steve and I, but God, too.  We wanted to write new vows to one another to include our new commitments that reflect our new beliefs.

Also, we wanted to renew our vows for our children's sakes.  Over the years we have watched with sorrow the grief and pain and devastation that has come when friends of ours have had their marriages and families break apart.  Our children have expressed fear to us at various times that this might happen to us someday.  We wanted to make vows to them that we would daily seek God's grace to live out our vows to one another and to them until death do us part.

Jacob officiated our little ceremony starting off by reading the selection of Scripture we had chosen for our wedding, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Then Steve and I made our vows to one another.  

And to the children.

And then Jacob helped us to do something special with all of the children.

Steve's mother gave us as a gift the part of an old aspen tree that used to be down "Honeymoon Lane" up in the Rocky Mountains where we took our first honeymoon.  We usually keep this stump on our fireplace mantle but for today we placed the stump with some potted flowers around the base of an old tree in our yard that needs to come down.  We hung votive candle holders right into the old tree and hung a shelf to hold our unity candle so that we could have a special lighting ceremony with the children.

We have lit our unity candle at every anniversary but this time we did something unique.  To symbolize each one of our children being a gift of God to us and coming from our union we bought a votive candle for each of them.  We bought the lovely wrought iron holders for them so that we can hang them in our dining room and they will always have this before them as a visual reminder of the vows that we have made to one another and to them.  We even found a wall decal with our wedding Scripture that we will put on the wall above the piano between the votive holders.

We had intended to sing a duet at our wedding but when the time came we could not locate the tape with the track on it.  We have since joked that God spared us from that when we heard the song at the end of the movie with Littlefoot the dinosaur, "The Land Before Time".  The children all thought it was hilarious that we were going to sing that at our wedding.  We have always thought the lyrics of that song were touching so we had "If We Hold On Together" playing while we lit the candles and then we all joined together and sang the ending of the song together.

Jordy gave the toast and we all chinked glasses together and enjoyed our pink lemonade.

Steve and I cut the cake... again.

 A dear friend brought ice cream cones for the children and everyone enjoyed some visiting while Jordy played some music, starting with playing "our song", "Moonlight Serenade" then going on to other favorites of ours and special songs to us.

Emily and Ethan surprised Steve and I by playing Pachelbel's Canon with some of the younger ones singing along vocally.  

I begged them to sing again the song they had taught themselves in four-part harmony to surprise me for Mother's Day.  They hadn't sang it together for months, but they did a wonderful job.

  I just love hearing my children sing together!

Here is the link to the video of the children singing "Crown Him with Many Crowns" together...Hakelings singing together

Then we all just enjoyed playing music and visiting together until the sun went down.  

The chandelier that Steve refitted with solar lights began glowing.

 The fairy lights on the arbor were glowing and our unity candle was glowing and our hearts were glowing, too.  It was such a lovely celebration.

Here's to the next 25 years!

If you'd like to see more pictures, just for fun Molly and I made a slideshow of the evening set to Pachelbel's Canon.  There were so many pictures it was hard to choose.  Many of them were blurry yet they captured the precious moments of the day frozen in that one glimpse of time.  You can view that here: Anniversary Slideshow

Our Second Honeymoon

I had in mind that I would slowly get caught up by doing a monthly blog post.  Alas, I fear I will never be able to keep up and get caught up at the same time.  Maybe through the winter I will find the time to fill in the gaps.  At any rate, Steve has freed me up to spend some time sitting at the computer today so that I can write about one of the biggest events of our year, our 25th wedding anniversary.

On our actual anniversary we left the children and went away for a second honeymoon in a remote cabin for two in a resort area designed specifically for romantic getaways in Eureka Springs, AR.  We had high expectations from what we had seen online but were blown away by the outstanding hospitality of the folks at Beaver Lakefront Cabins.

We pulled up to our little cabin-in-the-woods with a lakefront view the evening of the 13th of July.

Walking down the private walkway to our cabin we came to our little getaway retreat.

After passing through a small, screened-in porch we came into our cozy little romantic nook.

There was even a special welcome for us wishing us a happy anniversary!

For many years Steve and I would end each day with an epsom salt soak together.  We would unwind together and share about our day while in the bath.  We have not lived in a home with a large tub for the last several years and we have missed our uniting end of day ritual terribly and were so thrilled to be able to share that during our stay in this wonderful jacuzzi tub.

The kind folks at BLC left us a lovely bouquet as well as a bottle of champagne and cheese and crackers and truffles.  The view out the large picture window was both secluded and breathtaking.

There was a wrap-around deck and a wall of glass as well as a cute little table for two and a cozy gas fireplace.

Our first evening there we shared a meal of brie and crackers with blackberry jam at the little table made beautiful by the bouquet of cream and peach roses that Steve brought and the little bouquet that Naomi and Keziah sent with us.

The next morning we enjoyed coffee out on the deck together.  While we were reading the Bible together we were visited by a deer who came to listen in.

She seemed very inquisitive.  She stomped at us several times as if she wanted something and then in a huff, she turned and fled making the strangest noise.  It sounded like a cross between an elephant's trumpeting and a tropical bird's caw.

Afterwards we enjoyed a champagne brunch of home raised bacon and spinach omelets with a cream cheese danish that Molly made and packed for us.  We even brought some of Buttercup's milk from home as well as herbs and veggies from the garden.  We laughed about how we brought in our own food so we could eat on the cheap, and yet we ended up with elegant feasts of gourmet quality.

We then went down to the dock and took a turn around the lake on both the paddle boat and the canoe.  Here I am standing at the base of the very steep steps leading down to the dock.

We took the paddle boat out first.  Here is a view from the paddle boat while we were out on the lake.

What a workout!  The wind was against us making progress hard to come by.  It was with significant effort that we crossed the large lake and explored around.  We kept laughing about how we would be flying across the lake on the way back, but the wind turned and it was uphill both ways.

Here is a "selfie" of the two of us enjoying ourselves.

Steve was very eager to try canoeing.  Neither of us have ever gone out in a canoe before.  I felt safe on the paddle boat but the canoe seemed an entirely different story to me but I hated for him to be disappointed so I agreed to try it.  I'm so glad I did!

At first I was convinced we would tip over and I didn't want to leave the little parking spot in the dock.  We slowly paddled backwards and then I would beg Steve to not let us go out into the lake and we'd paddle back into the nook.  A person passing by asked conversationally, "Oh, you're going to take the canoe out, huh?"  To which I answered, "I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to leave the dock or not.  I keep going back and forth."  Steve laughed and added, "Yeah, literally!"

After the initial wobbly-tippy experience I felt ready to leave the safety of the dock and coast out into the wide expanse of the lake.  We only went a short distance, due to my begging Steve to go slow and allow me time to just adjust.  I nearly drowned once on a lake and I have had a phobia of large bodies of water ever since and so taking the canoe out was one of those "crazy trust exercises" in my mind.

Steve thought the canoe was great!  Especially after the arduous effort of the paddle boat.  A severe thunderstorm was quickly blowing in so we headed back to the dock for the time being.  Steve took a picture of me standing on the dock beside the two water crafts and we emailed it to the children with the subject line that we had survived them both!

 Then we went back to our cabin for a lovely picnic lunch.

I can't recall the last time I ate fast food.  We almost never eat restaurant food so it was a treat to us to bring some KFC with us to picnic with.  However, it didn't taste like we remembered.  I guess our preferences have changed.  It seemed incredibly salty to both of us.  But we still enjoyed our candlelit private picnic, just the two of us, with no bites to cut and no interruptions in our conversation.

Then while the storm poured the rain down we opened a couple of anniversary cards we had received from friends and then played some Yahtzee just like we did on our first honeymoon.

After the storm had spent itself we went back to the dock and took the canoe out on the lake again.  This time we went all over the lake, mostly staying fairly close to shore while we explored down the fingers of the lake.  I felt confident that if we capsized I could swim to shore, but I was happy to not have the opportunity to test that out!

The mist was rising off of the surface of the lake and it was very still and quiet all around us.  Can you see the mist over the water?

Only the most gentle of breezes was blowing across the surface of the water and we enjoyed a quiet conversation as we paddled together and found our rhythm on the water.  It was a very memorable and pleasurable time for us both.

Then we cooked a special anniversary meal together.  They have an in-house chef at BLC that will come to the cabin and cook a meal for you but we thoroughly enjoyed talking and working together in the little kitchen.  We brought all of our wonderful good food from home and felt so blessed to be enjoying T-bone steaks from our home raised steer that Steve grilled on the grill out on the deck while I put together a salad and cooked up some green beans fresh from our garden.

We had planned to get up early and go out on the lake again the next morning and watch the sun rise while out in the canoe but another thunderstorm rolled in during the night.  It woke me and I just had to wake Steve so we could lie in the big, comfy bed and marvel at the majesty and power of the storm through all the windows.  We had a wonderful view and saw many super bright strikes of lightening before we eventually fell back asleep.  It was still storming when the alarm went off so we abandoned our canoeing plans and enjoyed coffee in bed instead while watching the storm rage with our grand view out the windows and then we packed up and headed to Eureka Springs to wander around and enjoy the history of the town.

On the way we stopped at Thorncrown Chapel.  Jordy has gone with his choir to sing there and we enjoyed seeing it and picturing him singing there in the beautiful glass-walled chapel.

We then stopped at the historic Crescent Hotel built in 1863.  We wandered all around inside taking many pictures of the wonderful old architecture.

Here is Steve purchasing a walking tour booklet for us to guide ourselves through the old hotel.

This picture is taken from the gardens looking up at the back of the hotel. I am standing on the porch.

This is looking down from the upper patio deck onto the gardens below.

Steve took a picture from the bottom of the wonderful, old stairway.  Do you see my little head popping over the railing way up there?

Steve sitting out in front of the hotel.

Then we continued driving the historic loop through the unique town, stopping at a few of the old springs to take a taste of the famous healing waters.

After wandering around and enjoying the curious town we stopped at a little Mexican restaurant that served authentic, good food.  We enjoyed our lunch beside a waterfall that fell from the steep, rocky cliffs that the restaurant was built right into.

After exploring this unique "stair-stepped" town with a fascinating history and amazing Victorian architecture built right into the cliff sides, we headed back towards home to pick up Jacob and Jordy and bring them home with us for the weekend.  We ate supper together with the boys at the Keeter Center in Point Lookout and they surprised us with bringing a dessert to the table after we finished our meal.

By this time I was ready to go home.  I was ready for all the chaos and activity of all of our precious children.  Ready for the busy-ness of cutting bites and cleaning up spills and for the laughter and joy that is a part of our family meals.  Steve and I thoroughly enjoyed our time away and it was so wonderful to have some time together just the two of us, but it is better to be at home surrounded by all of our children and by the happiness and love that we have been blessed with and that surrounds us every day.