Eleven years ago today, on what some may remember as the hottest day on earth, I walked down a pier and in front of family, friends, {and strangers watching from the boats on the bay} promised for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and health and sealed it with an "I DO".
We exchanged the rings, mine a solid gold band and his a platinum ring with two gold stripes in the middle and were pronounced Mr & Mrs.
For 10 1/2 years those rings never came off. Well except for the occasional cleaning, working on cars, or baking bread {rings + dough = sticky mess}. In the winter hubby's would get loose as his fingers would shrink, but he would always realize it and find it right away. But, when he started shrinking too the ring became even more loose, leading to more slipping off and a couple close calls of finding the ring. I'm sure you can see where I'm going.
This past February, his ring slipped off and was nowhere to be found. He had went grocery shopping that day {Yes, he is a keeper} so he traced his steps from when he knew he had it, went back to the store, checked parking lots, combed over his car, searched the house up and down, but it was gone. He felt horrible, I felt sad, but what could we do?
We remained optimistic that it would turn up, but after a month or so started to give up hope. For his birthday in March I looked at rings to replace it, but I just couldn't find any that I liked and the ones I did were completely out of my budget. So no new ring for his birthday.
We both got accustomed to his bare hands and life moved on.
Skip to a few weeks ago...
Remember my recycling area in the house?
Well the other day I grabbed some of the bags to pack snacks for the beach when something medal fell out of one, onto the floor. Dylan said, "Look Mommy, one of your rings." But it wasn't one of my rings.
Oh yes, it was Dave's wedding ring in all it's glory!
We took a picture on my cell phone and sent it to him to surprise him.
He was as thrilled as I was to say the least.
Evidently when he had put the groceries away that day long ago, it must have slipped into a bag. Thankfully he put the bags in the recyclable area and not the trash. The ring must have fell towards the bottom so we didn't find it all these months.
So today, on our 11th Anniversary, the rings are both where they belong.
All is again right with the world.
Our hands proudly displaying our love and commitment to each other.
Here's to many more years of them continuing to do so!!!