Kissing in the Kitchen

It was March 5, 1989, that Mark and I first kissed! Can you believe it's been 20 years?! We both were Lancaster Bible College students and I was a freshman and Mark was a junior that year. Mark sang in the college choir and the first week of March was the choir's spring tour when they traveled to different churches and sang concerts. It so happened that I had gone home for spring break and the LBC choir was presenting a concert near my home in Virginia. Of course my family and I went to the concert - they looked forward to an evening of beautiful music and I wanted to see friends, particularly Mark! It was that night that I first heard Mark sing. He sang a beautiful solo, that old song "Sincerely Yours."


After the concert, all the members of the choirs were assigned different families to go home with to spend the night. Guess which choir member our family took home that night?! That was the first time Mark got to meet my grandparents and see my home. It was in the kitchen of my family's home before we all went to bed that he gave me a kiss! And twenty years later, we still are kissing in the kitchen every day!

Mark and Jenny 20 years ago

Valentines Dinner at church

Saturday night, Mark and I went to the "Homebuilders" Valentines Dinner at church. We don't really fit into the category of "Homebuilders" since we were established back in 1991, but since we still have a young child we can still sneak in the group!! I think we were the couple married the longest after our speaker, Dr. Light and his wife, and one of the only couples there who have a teenager in the house.

We had a really nice time - the gym was all decorated and there were some really hilarious games.... cake smashing, dressing men as brides with toilet paper, etc. Wedding pictures were shown continously on the big screen and it was fun to identify couples with their pictures.

Dr. Light gave a short inspirational talk on marriage and he encouraged us to do things for our spouses that would make them fall over in shock! Things that we know they would like, but we don't take the time to do it or we don't bother to do it often.

Mark must have really taken that advice to heart! I was totally shocked the next evening when he scooped out the cats' litter boxes! Mark does a lot of wonderful things for me each day - he always graciously helps around the house with dishes, laundry, vacuuming, etc. But the litter boxes!!! Wow!!!! I really appreciated that!

So I just want to encourage you to surprise your spouse and do something totally unexpected just to put a big smile on his/her face. And it is contagious!

To see pictures of our Valentine dinner, go to our church's website (the link is down on the right side of this page) and click on "ministries" and then "adult classes" and then "Homebuilders" and "Valentine Dinner" There is a picture of us at the "Love Shack" table!

Salt and Pepper

Did you see the Fireproof movie? If so, you'll recognize this analogy! Mark and I are definitely salt and pepper! We are so different from each other, yet we go together nicely (most of the time!) This week on Focus on the Family, they were talking about the book The Two Sides of Love and the basic temperaments: Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever and Beaver. It was a great two days of broadcasts and if you missed it, go to www.family.org to listen.

Anyway, being totally opposite as usual, Mark is VERY HIGH in the Beaver category with a bit of Golden Retriever in him too. I don't know which one I would fit in the most, but I do know that I am LEAST like a beaver! So we could clash quite a bit and sometimes we do! But the key, the secret to a long happy marriage, I think, is appreciating each other's differences. Sometimes it is hard when you have two opposite people, but like salt and pepper, we go together. We are a team! And we need each other's differences.

Last night, we were told of an opportunity to go to a dinner theatre show tonight - just the two of us and it sounded wonderful to me! Yet my wise beaver husband knows that if we did that tonight, we'd be stressed out tomorrow with all that needs to be done this weekend. So for the sake of our sanity, specifically MY sanity, he decided that we should not go. Sometimes my balloon does need a string and Mark is a very good string! And I thanked him. He is right and I'll appreciate being less frazzled tomorrow.

Our weekend in Havre de Grace

Mark and I had a wonderful, relaxing weekend in Havre de Grace, Maryland! My mom generously gave us two night's lodging at the cozy White House of Havre de Grace! And it wasn't even our anniversary. My mom just wanted to bless us with this and she knows how busy we've been and that we just needed some time away. She kept our children for the weekend at her house and they did some fun things too - like golfing and go karts! Mark and I had the whole guest house to ourselves. We loved this place, complete with a full kitchen, sitting area, beautiful bedroom and bath. Here are some pictures of the house. For more pictures or info. go to http://www.whitehouseofhavredegrace.com/. We highly recommend this cottage for a romantic getaway! It was perfect!

The house was just a block away from the water. Havre de Grace is a beautiful historic town right by the water's edge where the Susquehanna River meets the Chesapeake Bay. We could walk everywhere in town. We enjoyed many little unique shops and antique stores, but most of all we walked along the water on the Promenade, a boardwalk, where we could just relax and take in the beautiful scenery. We had gorgeous weather the whole weekend! It could not have been more perfect - temps in the low 80s and bright blue skies.

This is the oldest continually operated lighthouse in the U.S. We walked down to the lighthouse at night and saw the lights over the water. The Promenade is open until 11 PM so we even enjoyed an evening walk by the Bay last night.

We had such a wonderful time together and it truly was relaxing - just what we needed! No busy schedules, no interruptions, no hurry.

But we were very happy to see our children and be home again tonight.