Wendy and I have been married for one year today. We were married by our former minister (a great guy, and the one reason we had kept attending a church where we had doctrinal differences) outdoors at a state park near our home. It was a simple ceremony, just us, our kids, and our immediate family... it was really kind of a celebration of the blending of our two families into one. Afterwards, we had a family cookout, rather than the typical wedding reception, and we all had a nice time.

My main two memories of the day were that Wendy looked beautiful in her dress and that it was so cold that we all huddled around the grill at the cookout, trying to stay warm while we ate our burgers. In spite of the cold there was a lot of laughter and a lot of love, and we all had a great time. It was a wonderful day.

Wendy has posted an entry about it at her blog, where she makes me out to be a far better guy than I am. That's what I love about her... she looks at this fat redneck and sees Brad Pitt. Women this forgiving and this blind don't come along but every so often.

Our anniversary gifts to each other were probably a bit unconventional... but they reflected our individual tastes and our understandings of the others passions. Since the traditional first anniversary gifts are paper, we each gave the other books. I gave Wendy the first in Greg Rucka's Queen and Country series along with a gift certificate... and she gave me two books I've wanted for a long time. They're both by my favorite author and theologian, C.S. Lewis. One is The Great Divorce and the other is The Problem of Pain. Those gifts might seem odd or unromantic to some people... which is proof of just how lucky I am. I've found someone who really is on the same wavelength I am on.

I didn't think about it until Wendy pointed it out to me this evening... but it does seem kind of ironic to give your husband, as an anniversary present, books with the words "divorce" and "pain" in the title. We both had a good laugh over that, and I told her that I was just grateful that Lewis never wrote a book called I Hate You, You Fat Bastard.

Anyway, it's been a wonderful year, and I expect and hope for many more to come... as long as she can continue to stand to be with someone as wonderful and perfect as I am. Cough, cough, cough.