so here was the REAL gift... a disc golf challenge course. six disc golf targets and 6 discs (frisbees). and we had a ton of fun with them at the beach. maxx set them up all around the beach house. in some really tricky places.
even my dad enjoyed the challenge. and he might have a new career in senior disc golf circuit. might...
and are you wondering how i captured these lovely images? ON MY NEW CAMERA! the canon 7d. it is amazing. and i am working my way through the manual and all the online videos that canon offers for the slow learners... like me. thank you canon.
we spent a couple of days at the beach house. lovely days. i read 6 books. and a camera manual.
and adam and i celebrated 21 years of marriage. without going out to eat. of course, that is how adam likes to roll. we tend to as a family go to the beach house for our anniversary and conveniently there are no restaurants down there. but he did out-give himself (and his dave ramsey-ness) with the gift of my new camera. and i gave him a book. which i read before he even got his hands on it. typical.
and after 21 years of marriage, i don’t need a fancy restaurant. or a exotic locale.
do i desire those things? yes, sometimes i do. do i expect them? no, and one thing i have learned over the last 21 years is that whenever i put my EXPECTATIONS on his shoulders that it never turns out well for either of us.
just to wake up another morning and find that he has stuck around for no good reason except that he knows God wants him to stick with me for the long run and perhaps he wants to see what i might do that day (and he knows that i blog and he doesn’t want to get a bad rap on the blog. so he sticks around)... well, that is a reason to celebrate. the fact that he still makes me laugh, that is a reason to celebrate. that he wouldn’t let me go more than 2 weeks without a camera and that he bought the BEST camera for me even though i told him that i thought the 60d would be enough for me. and our budget. he went above and beyond because he knows that i love photography. i make fun of his cheapness (he calls it frugalness). but his cheapness/frugalness is what has enabled me to stay at home. to pursue many dreams that don’t earn a dime. to serve and love and teach and scrapbook and volunteer. and do a thousand things that he doesn’t understand but that he finances.
we have had many goals in our years together. and like those disc golf challenge goals, we hardly ever get the disc in the goal the first time. or the second. or the third. and some goals we may not ever achieve in this life. but the thing i love about adam is that he keeps playing the game. he keeps setting goals. he keeps spinning those discs. and getting closer and closer to the goal. and laughing when the shots go wildly to the side making us have to go farther to the goal than when we began to shoot. happens a lot. and all we can do is laugh. and keep shooting for the goal.
21 years of marriage. 25 years i have known him. and there is no one that is better at disc golf. or marriage to lea marshall. it has not been effortless on either of our parts... or God’s. and one day i will see that all the work that i “thought” that i put into this marriage wasn’t my work after all... it was God’s. and His goals were all achieved perfectly in two imperfect people living, loving, and laughing together while they missed all those goals that they “thought” they were shooting for all those years together.