A trip down anniversary memory lane | atlanta photographer

If you’ve been following my blog, then you already know that this month my husband and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. Yay us! To be honest, time has really flown by, so I guess that’s a good thing. If it felt like it was dragging by, then I don’t think that would be a good sign. The funny thing is, I never thought I would ever get married. I didn’t have anything against marriage, I just kept meeting guys that made me say, “Is this all there is?” There were a few good guys sprinkled in there but Steve was the lucky one who was able to rein me in.

 

Being that this is our 22nd year married (27th together) we have many fond memories regarding our anniversary. Most anniversaries we exchanged cards and then went out to dinner or dinner and a movie. We’re not real big on a lot of pomp and circumstance when it comes to celebrating things. It’s just not our style. There are better ways to express love for someone other than buying gifts. Usually the better ways are with experiences.

Over these 22 years, we have had made some wonderful memories. One of my most favorite anniversaries was our fifth anniversary in Belize. It was a wonderful trip, even though my period started at the airport on our way there. We didn’t let that stop us, even though the airport store put my period paraphernalia in a clear bag. We had rented a wonderful little condo on the beach of Ambergris Caye. The water was warm like bath water and clear enough to see all of the beautiful fish swimming around.

I was a little worried when we were headed to Ambergris Caye because we had to take a puddle jumper to get there. That was probably the smallest plane I had ever been on. When we arrived, it looked like we landed on an old baseball field. Let me just say, the sight wasn’t pretty, at all. Once we got to the condo, the beachside and the city side were like night and day. We took walks on the beach and rode bicycles to the local grocer to pick up food to cook for breakfast. I loved it.

On one of the walks on the beach, we saw a pack of stray dogs. This one little scruffy dog decided that he liked Steve and walked right beside him like Steve was his owner. As other people approached, the dog would bark at them as if he was protecting Steve. I think dogs know dog people when they see them. Needless to say, we did not take the dog with us.

One of the most memorable parts of the trip was when we went snorkeling. Neither of us had never wore fins, let alone gone snorkeling. We boarded the boat at about 10:00 in the morning. There was a father and son duo, the guide/driver of the boat and us.

Well, it turned out that part of the snorkeling tour was to swim with sharks. Yes, I said sharks. I don’t remember signing up for that but okay. For anyone who is interested, they were nurse sharks so that was supposed to make us feel better. I was just about to jump in and noticed about three sharks swimming in the vicinity. I don’t know about you, but my brain wouldn’t allow me to jump right into the middle of the sharks. So, I jumped out on the far side of the boat away from the. Yes, I know…I was still in the water with sharks.

Anyway, it was beautiful in the water. There were a school of bright yellow fish stacked up underneath our boat as I swam toward our guide. He was gently holding a nurse shark with both of his hands. I slowly swam over there and gently rubbed the shark’s side. I guess you can say that I petted it. It felt like crushed velvet. It was so cool that i wanted to touch it again but my husband thwarted me. He barreled into me and knocked me out of the way. Then he too petted the shark. Evidently, he was unable to control himself with he fins on and ended up using me as a brake.

After that, we swam along the reef until we got to a point where the floor dropped. Not only that, there was a large dark blue wall of water. When you put your hand through it to the other side, it was extremely cold. That was the real ocean. Not only was it cold, it was a bit scary. Even scarier than the barracuda we swam past. As we swam, I had to keep checking on my husband behind us because he didn’t know how to swim with fins on, even though I showed him how.

So, we boarded the boat and watched the giant sea turtles swim around the boat while we waited for the father and son duo to come back from scuba diving. All of a sudden I had to pee really, really badly. The guide told me to climb down the latter and pee in the water. I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t. Do you know how hard it is to use the bathroom when everyone on the boat knows you are using the bathroom & can see you do it? Not only that, remember, I was on my period. The last thing I wanted to do was put blood in the water.

Needless to say, I couldn’t go. And before I go on, I no longer trust tampons. I saw all of the commercials that stated all of the things you could do with a tampon in, even swim. Yes, I swam with it in but it felt like it sucked up a whole lot of water too. By the time the father and son got back I had to pee so bad I felt sick. My husband knew the deal but told them that we needed to get back to the dock because I didn’t feel well. Then we got stopped by the reef patrol. Steve asked if they could take me back to the dock but they said no. At this point, I had to pee so bad that I thought I was going to throw up.

The guide sped back to the dock as quickly as he could. Each bump of the waves made my stomach ache even more. Once we arrived, I didn’t even wait for them to tie the boat to the doc. I jumped out the boat and ran to the condo. Luckily, the condo was maybe 100 yards for the dock. As I entered the condo, I began undressing. I left a line of wet swim cloths leading to the bathroom. I have never felt such relief as when I was finally able to pee. This image was after riding in the boat from petting the shark to before I really had to pee. That was also when I had a whole lotta hair.

That really was a great trip. There is so much more I could tell you about but this is like a short novel as it is. Of course, we had to visit the Mayan ruins, even though it took us a boat ride and a very long and bumpy bus ride to get there. It was definitely worth it. One more thing to remember, this is the trip we returned from where I got pregnant with my son. Now the story is full circle!

“Real love stories never have endings.” ~ Richard Bach