12 years married.

Saturday night me and Isaak sneaked away for a date night to celebrate twelve years married. It's the first time away we've had with just the two of us since moving here and we were very happy for a couple hours just for ourselves! Although, after being married twelve years, we've learned to go with the flow. We are at ease with where our life is and recognize that alone time doesn't happen frequently right now. So we treasure the time we do get and have learned to find moments to connect amongst the chaos.

On the recommendation from friends we went to a restaurant called Gondwanas. Every room has a different theme and this is the room we were seated.

Not sure what the "theme" is, but the floor was covered in sand....so I'm going with "Deserty".

The food was absolutely amazing!! The best restaurant we've eaten at so far. Isaak got their food challenge item of sorts, it was four or five burgers stacked on top of each other, and you have to eat every last bite....says everyone who has eaten it. I think Isaak would have called it quits after the first two patties had the thing not tasted so good....and the fact that we had a group of friends in the corner peeking over to monitor his progress. AND, there was an older gal from my bible study sitting across from us who came over when she saw what Isaak ordered and conveniently mentioned that she also ate it all. Naturally after that he ate every bit of that monster burger. Poor guy, his body is not used to eating so much food anymore! Ha ha! He would not be put to shame.

I had the capitaine brushette. I normally get capitaine when we go out so I can get my fish fill. In Francophone African countries they call this fish capitaine, but it is really the Nile perch. Oh my gosh it is SO good. Best capitaine I've had yet! My mouth was so happy! 

Fun night. That morning I got the idea to write out a list of questions to talk with Isaak about over dinner. Questions about our last year together and the upcoming year of marriage. Honest questions like, "what changes would you like to see in my this next year?" "What is one area of our marriage you would like to see us improve on this year?" "What is one new thing you'd like to learn this year?" "name one high and one low from this past year." It was nice. We rarely get dinner dates just us, without kids present or other friends being there, but when we do we often just shoot the breeze. Talk about whatever. Silly stuff. Life is so busy and it's so easy to "miss" each other and not really talk about meaningful things. This gave the conversation over dinner some extra depth and insight and that's always a good thing. :~) After twelve years together we still need a lot of that. I think I'm going to make this a tradition and do this every year. As a way to look back and reflect on the past year we spent together, ask real questions, and get excited about the next year together.

So, twelve years and counting. This past year was a crazy ride....no tellin' what the next one has in store! But, glad that Isaak will be there walking through it with me.