Vows

So I know I mentioned that Jake and I met playing kickball in DC. It seems so cliche around here but when we tell adults (we are not yet adults) and people from out of town they find it to be such a novel concept (adult kickball itself and that we met that way). Anyway the quick recap goes something like this: met playing kickball, dated for 3 years, cohabited for 1 year, a-maze-ing trip to Ireland including proposal, bought a condo, got married just after the 5 year mark from first date. We had three 'weddings' so to speak. For logistical reasons we were married by a clerk of Arlington County in June of 2009. We had 24 people at the wedding ceremony in Milwaukee a month later. In October we had a kick-ass casual open bar party at an Irish pub in Arlington. Then it was over and life returned to normal.

Two nights ago I had to specifically hold Jake accountable for one of the vows he made to me during the wedding ceremony in Milwaukee. His vows went something like this:

Karen, since we first met you have been many things to me: teammate, girlfriend, fiancee...

Today, in this place, surrounded by our family and friends, I am so happy to take you as my wife. I pledge to grow our relationship as we grow together. I will be your fellow traveler, to the end of the block or the ends of the earth. I will laugh with you, and cry with you, and do my best to make sure that there is more of the first and less of the second. I will kill spiders. I will respect you, and listen to you, and cherish the things that make you special to me. And I will always love you.

And if you have any doubts what-so-ever about which part of this I am referring to, I will just say that I nearly jumped out of my skin completely when I discovered this HUGE thing hanging in the corner of our bathroom:

I had to get out the macro zoom lens to get the photograph because I was not planning on going anywhere near that thing. It was like 3 inches in size! I'm usually okay with bugs but spiders creep me out big time.

Anyway, our legal marriage isn't the date we're using for our anniversary so we'll still got a little over a month before the big 0-1. If anyone in the area can recommend a bakery where I can get a good cake I would be much obliged. We left what was remaining of our wedding cake in Milwaukee and finished up what was in my in-laws freezer back at Christmas time. Since my birthday is right around the same time I'd rather not bake it myself this time.