It's Our Anniversary, Every Day!

Isael and Denise Barreto - 13 years together - 12 married!

I am not embarrassed to let you all know that if it weren't for the Facebook calendar, I may have "missed" celebrating our anniversary this year - after 12 years of marriage. Yes, it was late in the day this past Saturday when I noticed that Facebook said I was commemorating my "anniversary with Isael Barreto."

I had to laugh.

You see, over the last 12 years, it's been sort of a cruel joke between us the whole anniversary celebration. In the early days, I wanted to celebrate and we were torn on which date to actually commemorate - March 27, the day we were legally married in the US or April 27 the wedding date. We whiffed them both, regularly.  You could blame it on the blending of cultures. On me, part cultural brainwashing, growing up in the US where we celebrate everything over the top and on him, growing up in Mexico where it is not as big a deal to celebrate your anniversary at all. You could also blame the fact that neither of us come from families where anniversaries even happened let alone were celebrated.

In 2011, we did celebrate our 10th anniversary with a great trip to Sonoma County California for fun weekend but apart from that we have sucked it big on celebrating our anniversary. And after a little reflection over the weekend, I'm happy to share why.

We enjoy one another, (most) every day of every year. We don't need to only celebrate our longevity on the actual day it started. We laugh and reminisce often, with our kids. They know our story. We live our story of love, daily. So while it is fun to actually have others join in on the celebrating once a year, we don't have a huge need celebrate something we live out and are grateful for daily - our love story. We have a fantastic relationship with our anniversary. It is part of us all the time.  So it's become fun to eek out a celebration on the fly.

No cards.

No gifts.

Just us. And lots of smiles and laughs.

We'd have it no other way.