Some men out there get a lot of crap for not remembering key dates along their relationship, but I guess I’m one of the weird ones that actually remembers them … like today, which just so happens to be the 5th anniversary of the very first date that my wife and I shared together back in 2006. Over the years, I’ve tried to make a habit of writing something special to commemorate this day, so this year I thought it might be fun to take a look back at a few of my favorite moments with my love over the last five years…

A Golden Dolphin at Animal Kingdom Lodge
Our 6-month dating anniversary that we spent over at Disney World had a lot of cool memories – our hotel room boasted views of animals out on the Savannah 24 hours a day, we enjoyed a great teppan meal at the Japanese Pavilion at Epcot, and also, it represented the first time that I ever bought real jewelry for a girlfriend … I think I was more nervous picking out this little golden charm than I was when I bought her engagement ring a few months later!

Swimming with Akai
It’s hard to top the evening when you propose to your bride to be, but we still managed to go even a notch higher when we spent the next day swimming with dolphins, among other sea creatures over at Discovery Cove. Getting to experience one of Sara’s life-long dreams with her was something unlike any other. Also, dolphins are really heavy…

Meatballs and Spanakopita
Next up was the food tasting for our wedding, as enjoyed at Spinners at the top of the Grand Plaza Hotel over on St. Pete Beach where we would eventually have our wedding ceremony about a year later. Little did I know that I wouldn’t actually get the opportunity to enjoy any of those Swedish meatballs on my own day, so it was at least nice to try them here! It’s still a nice restaurant that we like to wander back to from time to time, with a rotating floor that offers panoramic views of both the coast and the mainland.

An Anniversary Fit for a Pirate!
Last fall my wife surprised me for our anniversary with a trip to Disneyland, which in itself was pretty sweet, but what truly knocked it out of the park was the dinner she planned for the actual night of our anniversary. Super fancy with coat and tie? Crappy food served in miniscule portions?? Nope – pirate dinner, complete with romantic mood lighting, crab cakes, and pumpkin mousse for dessert! In a single word – awesome.

Bubbling Under the Stars
And my last memorable moment actually just happened a couple of days ago, however it’s mentionable more because a lot of it was spent looking forward into the future – our future together, growing our family, pursuing dreams, and generally just enjoying each other’s company along the way. It was a true calm and serene moment with the water bubbling around us and the stars twinkling above, and it just made me feel happy about all of the things next to come.

Here’s to the next five years and all of the new memories that we share together along the way!

Although The Wedding Anniversary seems to be the key date that most couples tend to focus on, for some reason I often feel that April 20th is the more significant of the two because this is day that I actually met Sara for the first time face-to-face. We’d e-mailed and chatted over the phone for a couple of weeks prior, but it was on this day in 2006 that we finally sucked it up and made plans to meet at a local Applebee’s down the street from Sara’s apartment – our first official date.

Of course, that was four years ago already – wow – and sometimes it’s amazing to think of just how far we’ve come together in our relationship. It certainly hasn’t been easy – most things worth doing aren’t – but on this day I thought I’d take just a moment to reflect back on a few key points that I’ve noticed about how we’ve gotten where we are now and “advice” that I might offer up to others, if you will…

Rarely will things ever be 100% equal.
Someone will always make more money, spend more money, do more than their fair share of the chores, or appear to have more free time to do the things that they want to do. It sounds like a great idea, but in practice complete and total equality just isn’t very realistic. The sooner you learn to accept that and embrace the ebbs and flows of responsibility, the less fights you’ll have over who’s turn it is to do the dishes.

Talk about the things that are awkward to talk about.
In fact, the more awkward they feel, the more important it probably is for you to explore those avenues and get those thoughts out in the open. I honestly believe that if your relationship is truly unconditional like marriage is supposed to be, there shouldn’t be anything that the two of you can’t talk about, and besides, often times you’ll come out of the experience even closer to each other than when you started. Talking is always a good thing.

Figure out your household’s finances … as quickly as possible!
It’s so easy to fight about money – not having enough, not being able to spend it as you wish or do the things you want, stressing to make ends meet. That’s why our #1 goal after Sara graduated was to really dig in and start focusing on getting our budget back in order because right now we’re simply not ready to take our next steps in life (house, baby, changes to my career). Of course, it’s a result of not being as fiscally responsible over the last several years a la wedding, vacations, and so forth, but eventually it comes time to pay the piper … and as a bonus, even only four months into our debt repayment, we’ve already made significant progress and are feeling great about it!

Take time to stop and enjoy your time together.
Especially when you’re focused and working really hard to achieve a major goal like paying your way out of debt, it’s easy to lose track of yourselves and grow farther apart as you each do your own thing. Don’t. Make the most of the time that you do have, plan extra time where you can be together and not be distracted – always keep in mind that the whole point of focusing on something important is ultimately to better your lives together, so don’t lose each other in the process.

Strive to make each other feel special.
It can be through little things like a random text message to say “I was thinking about you…” or a nice foot massage after a long day, or even more encompassing surprises like the mystery vacation that my wife is planning this year for our anniversary. Whatever you do, strive to always find new and interesting ways to show your partner that you genuinely care. In my case, sometimes that even means my wife willingly bringing peanut butter into our home – if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is!

Cuddle Bear came with the idea that instead of cuddling up with massive amounts of blanket in the middle of the night, I could instead embrace the bear itself, thus preventing Sara from freezing to death in the middle of the night. That said, I’m not entirely sure how that’s to work, as she’s the one who monopolizes the blankets in the middle of the night by rolling up in them like some sort of modern-day mummy, thus making it virtually impossible to get any blanket for myself without first pulling on one of the corners of the blanket really hard and spinning her out of the bed like something in a Scooby Doo cartoon.

All cuddles aside, maybe I can use the bear itself to keep me warm when I come to bed to find that the blanket has gone the way of the Egyptians. Ahhh, the conundrums of almost-married life…

On this day in history, exactly one year ago today … give or take a few hours, that is … Sara and I had our first date. We met online and had been e-mailing back and forth for a couple of weeks before we finally worked up the nerve to actually meet each other in person.

Just between you and me, I’m glad that we did!

It’s kind of funny because looking back, I distinctively remember her not being sure if she even wanted a relationship at the time and for a while I was kinda worried that she was going to back out and disappear, but fortunately I was persistent enough to stick around and coax her into giving it a shot, and a year later I simply couldn’t imagine it any other way. We’d both been through some pretty rough times recently and each of us came with our own “interesting” loads of baggage … who doesn’t, honestly? … but we supported each other and have worked through pretty much everything that’s stood in our way thus far and I’m confident enough in what we have to say tonight that I really don’t think there’s much of anything we couldn’t handle.

We’re a great team together and really, I think that’s what a good relationship has to boil down to or it’s just never going to work. And it’s tough to get over the ME mentality that we develop over the years between supporting ourselves and exploring what life has to offer and just trying to be independent – to work so hard towards the place where you don’t have to rely on anybody else, it’s certainly not easy to open yourself back up and learn that it’s ok to put yourself out there and rely on another person to help fill your daily needs, whether they be emotional, financial, or what have you. It’s a thing that needs a constant stream of good communications, even if and especially if it’s something you don’t want to hear. I may not like it during the fact, but one of the things that I love about Sara the most is that she’s got the guts to stand up to me and tell me when I’m wrong. A lot of people would rather kiss your ass or just keep their thoughts to themselves, but what good does that do either of us at the end of the day? Until we talk about it and get our thoughts out in the open, we can’t possibly expect to learn from our mistakes and move on – communication is good, even though sometimes it’s going to be unpleasant.

So I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that I want to have Sara in it with me and at this point, that’s good enough for me. We’ve come a long way over the past twelve months, seen a whole lot of good things and dealt with the bad ones as best we could, and at the end of the day I know that I’m a happier person because she’s in my life. Even if I can’t get her to pick up her dirty clothes every once in a while…