Rhubarb and Radiance

This past week we celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary! How does twenty years go by so fast and yet so slow, with struggle and with sweetness? And so it was that we spent our anniversary evening in the ER with Leo. A picture fell off the wall and landed on his little finger. It turned purple and red and swelled up immediately. We were worried that it may have been broken. It was very different going there in the Covid era. We were met at the door outside by a nurse who asked why we were there. She brought us in, took our temperatures, and helped me to put on a mask. I was the only one allowed in with him so Ben waited in the car. 

Without much ado we got to see the doctor who explained that it looked like the picture had hit his growth plate which was actually a good thing since the bones are still pliable. He order x-rays to be sure. A technician took us down to the x-ray room where we both cajoled an unhappy toddler into putting his owie finger into different positions long enough for a picture to be taken. Well after all that and one teddy bear later we found out that his finger thankfully wasn't broken. By the end of the day, with a little tylenol, he was feeling better enough to start trying to use it again. As we were leaving a doctor in full PPE walked into the room next to ours. We skirted out of there as quickly as we could and prayed we hadn't been exposed to anything. We got back home and re-heated our anniversary Chinese take-out dinner that we didn't even get to touch before we had left in a flurry.

The next day however was the anniversary of our crowning and it was a very nice day. But on to the rhubarb! For years I've been waiting for my "pie garden" to mature enough to produce a sizeable harvest. To celebrate I made a strawberry rhubarb pie with the freshly picked fruits of my garden. It was absolutely the most flavorful pie I've made yet. The strawberries were small and sweet. Unlike giant store-bought strawberries they had a smaller water content, which meant my pie didn't get soupy and bubble sticky juice into the oven. 

Cracker pie with strawberries.

Home-made flaky crust, sweet strawberries and rhubarb.

Anniversary flowers and a quote that I love...

"And so marriage is a road: its starts out from the earth and ends in heaven. It is a joining together, a bond with Christ, who assures us that he will lead us to heaven, to be with him always. Marriage is a bridge leading us from earth to heaven. It is as if the sacrament is saying: Above and beyond love, above and beyond your husband, your wife, above the everyday events, remember that you are destined for heaven, that you have set out on a road which will take you there without fail."

- (Elder) Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra

My anniversary gift from Ben was a bird bath and solar fountain. 

It is the perfect addition to the garden!

Pressing flowers and leaves hits full swing as summer blushes new growth.

Two Sundays ago we got to go back to church for the first time in three months. Leo was immensely joyful that we got to go to church. ('Church' and the 'Library' are the two things he misses the most.) We had the cry room as our family's designated area. 

Summer is still bringing treasures.

Butterflies, garden harvests, playing doctor and pretending

to go to the hospital...

I look forward to the treasures our marriage continues to bring.

May God grant us many more years to discover them together.