Davis and I took a little overnight trip for our anniversary.  Well, actually, what happened was....our son was going to spend a pre-planned weekend with his sister at college, where she was going to show him around and entertain him in various ways.....ways, which revolved mostly around baseball and food.  Since we had to take him up there and pick him back up, we just decided to "get a room" and save ourselves a trip.  So, when I say we took a little anniversary trip, I don't want you to get too excited or expect pictures of blue water and drinks with umbrellas.  The only blue water anywhere around was the hotel pool, which was full of leaves and closed until spring and the closest thing these Baptists had to a drink umbrella were the paper tops covering our hotel bathroom glasses.

Anyway, when packing the car, Davis spots the gift I'd bought for him.  (I'd just gotten him a couple of books.)  "What's this, Joni?....you know we don't exchange gifts for our anniversary unless it's a big one," he said with remorse in his voice.  He obviously feels "big ones" are the ones ending in a five or a zero.  Apparently, someone didn't read my blog on the most common mistakes made by men at gift giving time.  No agreement to withhold gifts is ever binding as far as women are concerned, so men should always be prepared.  At least, we'd gotten all that pesky anticipation about what my gift might be out of the way before we even left the garage. 

For those of you who don't know Davis, if you look up the word, practical, in the Webster dictionary, he is pictured there.  With our anniversary so close to Valentine's Day, the practical or Davis thing to do would be to roll the two occasions into one, which he seems to have mastered.  Not the most romantic approach to special occasions, but you have to give him points for efficiency and reasoning and in the spirit of the Olympics, he could even be a medal contender in such an event.   

I'm not picking on sweet Davis.  I've always known that his love language was not gift giving.  He needs Rosetta Stone for that language.  If that were of great importance to me, I wouldn't have married him.  No, his love language is the more steady and consistent, acts of service, and, in it, he's quite fluent.  On a daily basis, he speaks volumes by the little and big things he does for me, which is worth a lot more than anything wrapped in paper. 

The evening of our anniversary, we enjoyed a very nice dinner with predictable entrees ordered by each of us.  Davis, on his march to become a burden to the children as long as possible, got the almond crusted grouper with water as fish is low in fat, the almond crust went toward his daily intake of nuts, and water, of course, contains no sugar.  I, working to bump my heart cath up a year or two closer, enjoyed the filet with cheese grits and sweet tea.  I guess since I had no gift, I subconsciously decided to run the food bill up to the amount that I felt would've been appropriate for him to have spent on it.  I skipped the mignon and went straight for the filet grande, as we'll call it. 

All alone with no children, Davis and I could discuss very serious topics that only couples with 22 years of maturity could enter into like memories of our wedding day, our parents, my new blog, Davis' federal retirement countdown and how it's funny that when women start growing hair on their chins, it starts growing out of men's ears and noses and how that must be God's design, so that no one could make fun of the other one.  And after we'd thoroughly covered that phenomenon, we talked about what any couple would talk about when they're all alone on their anniversary.......the children.  Things the children have said, things the children have done, grades the children have made, the children's schedules, the children's futures, how we're going to pay for the children......things like that.

We met up with the kids for lunch the next day and then we all went to the Sunday baseball game together.  We achieved our usual asymmetrical sunburns on the "south" sides of our faces and necks and we got to catch up with Blair and see a lot of people she's met and friends she's made.  I took her several servings of frozen, homemade food, which she had requested.  Nothing warms a mother's heart like hearing her child say that her cooking is missed.     

So, that was our weekend.  We enjoyed a low key couple of days together, kicking around our alma mater, ballgames, visits with the kids, and eating.....lots of eating.  I don't think a reality show about us would ever get off the ground.  We're not near as glitzy as the Kardashians or Real Housewives, but we'd like to think we're a little more refined than Honey Boo Boo's people.  We're just somewhere in the middle, where things aren't too flashy, but they're not too shabby either.  We're the Millers and there's nothing to see here.  We kinda like it like that.  We kinda like us.