5 years ago today...

5 years ago today (July 22nd) Jason and I stood near the 18th green at Deere Run and said "I do."  That was right after the brief, cleansing storm that blew through and sent the sirens blaring.  Jason and some of our friends and guests ran around wiping down all of the seats so the guests could get seated again and we could start the wedding.  After the storm blew through the sky was blue and the birds were chirping.  I swapped my heels out for some flip flops so I wouldn't sink into the ground but other than that, we continued as planned.  It was a beautiful day.
Our 5th anniversary, however, will go down as one of our least favorite days.  The boys and I wanted to go ride the train at the train festival.  It stormed in the morning threatening to ruin our plans but then cleared up enough that we made our way across the river.  We got parked and waited in line at the entrance only to find out they had sold out of train tickets for today.  I had two pretty disappointed little guys.  I immediately started to figure out what else we could do that would come close to a ride on a big train.  I called Jason but he was having a busy day and couldn't meet us for lunch.  I asked Nash if he wanted to go to Monkey Joe's and he was excited about that.  So we jumped for a while and the boys had a great time.

We took a brief break for a piece of pizza and things turned sour from there.  To make a painful story short, Nolan ended up pulling a metal table over on himself pinning his head between the table and the floor.  On our way to the van Nash tripped in the parking lot and scraped his knee so I had two crying boys all the way to the ER.  OK, I was crying too. I called Jason and he met us there.  They did a CT scan and it turns out Nolan has a questionable nasal fracture but no internal head injury.  After the swelling goes down in his face he shouldn't have any effects from the injury.  Thank you God!  He napped most of the time in the ER and through his CT scan so by the time we got home he was awake.  I put Nemo on and he was smiling again.  I'm thinking he might have two really black eyes tomorrow.  It was a pretty awful afternoon.

Nolan post injury.  Such a tough little guy.

Nolan was doing well by evening and running all over the place.  Nash was still distraught about his scraped knee.  My sister and brother came by and we all went out for dinner.  We celebrated our anniversary with a margarita then went home and played euchre (the ladies won).
A little recap..In the last 5 years I have taken Jason to the ER twice and in the last 2 months the boys have each been in the ER once.  We had to take Nash in one night last month after he hit his head on our headboard REALLY hard and immediately had a huge goose egg.  He was fine too but sported a big bump on his head for a bit.  I'm hoping we can stay away from the ER for a long while.  My brother asked me if they know us by name over there yet.
Tomorrow we are going to the kids festival in my home town and the boys are going to spend the night with Nana and Papa.  Jason and I are having an "adults only" anniversary dinner with our friends Andrea and Woody who got married 364 days before we did.  Happy 6th anniversary to the Manderscheids!  And although our 5th anniversary was not how I pictured it, I feel SO blessed to have a loving, supportive husband and two amazing, and healthy little boys.  Cheers to many more years of happiness and staying out of the ER!  Happy Anniversary Jason Helmut!