Thankful Thursday: 20 Years

There are so many things for which I am thankful.  I'm thankful for my husband's smooth recovery from surgery.  I'm thankful for Genevieve's life.  I'm thankful for all the things in general like Christ, family, and food on our table.

But today I want to express my gratitude for 20 years of marriage with my husband.  Yesterday, we celebrated our 20th Anniversary.  We met in high school.  I was a junior, he a senior.  Mid year, we transferred into the same Drama class.  Of course, right away, I noticed how tall Greg was (6' 6" for those who don't know him).  But I was also intrigued by his name.  Everyone called him "Sabo", so for the longest time, I thought that was his first name.  lol

We became friends, and after only two months of dating, we were engaged.  We didn't marry until a year and a half later because I had to graduate first.  Three months after graduation, I was Mrs. Gregory Sabo. 

What an adventure these past 20 years have been.  We've had our ups and downs like most married couples, but the ups have definitely out-numbered the downs.  We love each other more than we can imagine, and can see how God has molded us into the couple we are now.

Tuesday afternoon, Greg whisked me off to Fredericksburg for a night in a B & B.  You won't believe this, but this was our first time in 20 years that we have gone away together.  Shocking, isn't it?  Between pregnancies, nursing babies, time, schedules, and life in general, we were never able to do it.  Well, this time Greg wasn't going to let such a wonderful milestone pass us by without doing something special.  So, with baby in tow, we escaped.  I was so surprised.  Our very sweet older girls took care of the kids while we were away.
This is where we stayed.....The Angel's Lodge.

Our room was beautiful and cozy......

I could go for one of these at home....

We enjoyed a lovely breakfast which was delivered to our room...

Here is our little bundle of sweetness enjoying time alone with Mommy and Daddy.  She was such a good girl, and it really helps that she sleeps through the night.  Once she went to bed at about 8:30, the night was ours....

We reminisced into the night the past 20 + years.  We went year by year and tried to think of our favorite memories.  We shared laughs and took in all the joy of God's faithfulness in our lives....

Here we are on the front porch of our room.  The sweet lady at the front desk was kind enough to get our picture.  I wanted to kiss her when she told us that we looked too young to be celebrating 20 years of marriage.  Score!  ;-)  She really flipped when we told her we had nine children and that our oldest was engaged to be married.  All of the staff there was superb!

As if the celebration wasn't incredible enough, we came home to another surprise.  A few friends from church went in together to get us a gift card to The Melting Pot.  Talk about being speechless!  Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?  What a blessing!  Our oldest daughter, Cheyenne, made reservations for us.

We feasted on "The Big Night Out".  We even had to take dessert home because we were too full to squeeze it in.  We asked our wonderful waiter to get this picture for us.  And speaking of our waiter, when we told him we were celebrating our 20th anniversary, he asked, "What's your secret....I can't even make it 20 days!"  We joked with him a bit and shared a couple of practical ways to stay married, but once we established a rapport with him, we told him the true secret.  We shared with him that Jesus was the secret.  The night was only made more special by getting the opportunity to share Christ with this young man. 

After the kids went to bed, and we had more room in our bellies, we brewed some coffee and enjoyed our dessert. 

This was truly an occasion to share our thanks.  There's so much more I would love to share, but then this post would turn into a novel. ;-)

What are you thankful for today? 

Don't forget to head on over to The Marathon Mom and read about what others are thankful for!  :)