The competitive marriage

I have been on Spring break this week, and the Mik family has been on lots of exciting adventures all over the place. I'll have to post about our 10 hour drive and fun visit with my sister and her 12 kids, but another highlight of this week was celebrating our 4 year anniversary.

Best moment of our lives

Four years ago I made the best decision of my life. I said "I do" to the Officer, and I made a vow in front of God and our family and friends to spend the rest of my life loving that man. We have been so blessed with 4 incredibly happy years of marriage, and each year has truly been better than the previous year. After only a few years of marriage I certainly don't have enough experience to offer any wise marriage advice, but I'm going to do it anyway ;). Well maybe not so wise, and not exactly advice. If I were to give real marriage advice there are many things I'd say that have already been said by much wiser people about faith, prayer, trust, respect, laughter, making a decision every day to love.... instead I'm going to keep it light and tell you one surprising thing that works well in our marriage. Competition.

Can't you just see the competitive love?

It's not for everyone. The Officer and I are both very competitive people, and if you have ever joined us for a game night you know this. So it is no surprise that we are competitive in marriage. We like to turn almost everything into a little competition. It makes for a happy marriage for us, because we secretly compete to be the best spouse possible. If he has spent a day working hard, then in return I want to work hard to serve him dinner or put the girls to bed... We compete to make the other happy and make the other feel loved. We also compete just to make things more fun. When we first got married we would do our grocery shopping together, and as we waited in the checkout line we each guessed the price of all our groceries. It was Price is Right style and whoever got closest without going over was the winner. It always made a boring errand a little more fun. The winner of all our competitions usually gets a foot massage.... which means I've had many foot massages in 4 years, and the Officer has only had a few ;) 

Our biggest competition has definitely been anniversary celebrations. When we got married we copied one of my sisters and decided to take turns planning our anniversary each year. I plan the odd years, and the Officer plans the even years. It works perfectly, except that it's getting a little out of control already. I started it out nice and simple enough with a quiet dinner date night for our first anniversary. Then for our 2nd the Officer planned an amazing afternoon at a nearby spa. So I decided I needed to step up my game for our 3rd, and I planned a little historic afternoon trip, dinner, and then an overnight stay where we had our wedding reception. It was great but I realized now we are in the habit of "one-upping" each other each year, which is going to get expensive quickly. We celebrated our anniversary last weekend, and the Officer certainly raised the bar for anniversary planning. 

The beautiful resort

Our balcony

We spent the night at a beautiful resort, and he spoiled me with an entire day of spa treatments. My afternoon started with a prenatal massage (amazing!), followed by a facial, and a pregnancy pedicure. Then we went to a fancy dinner and hit up the resorts' arcade for an evening of even more competition. He hates that I always win at air hockey, but he definitely kicks my butt in all other arcade games. We had a beautiful room with a huge balcony where we sat talking late at night, and the next day we got to sit with our feet in the hot tub talking about future anniversaries. Even the 2 hour country drive out to the resort all alone was so nice to just talk. I love long talks with the Officer. 

The spa section of the resort

The arcade

The Officer certainly set a high standard with this anniversary, just like he sets a high standard every day as a spouse. I can't say enough about what an amazing man he is. I'm so glad our girls get to grow up with such an incredible father showing them how a man should love his family.  Happy 4th Anniversary to my love! It has been an exciting 4 years, and this year we get to meet our newest baby, so I know this year will be great too.

On our actual anniversary my sister and her family watched the girls and we went out to a nice lunch and a walk on the river.... we've been so spoiled this week!

Next year I am in charge of planning our 5th anniversary, and obviously 5 should be a pretty big one.... so no pressure for me. I guess I should start planning now.... feel free to send me any creative ideas that the Officer would love =)
Happy Easter!!