share and share alike

I am all for give and take in marriage. Marriage is about sharing. However, this past week I wish Jonathan had shared just a bit less.

Jonathan got back from Canada last Saturday (over a week ago), and we spent time planning an early anniversary weekend to DC/Baltimore.
Monday, Jonathan got sick. Sparing the details, his lunch was lost a few times and then was "plugged up" severely for days after that.
We left Thursday afternoon for our hotel outside of DC. Finally, after the first night, he started feeling pretty normal again.
We spent most of the day in Baltimore on Friday... Science Museum, walk around the pier, street entertainment, pouring rain on our longer-than-expected walk to California Tortilla, ice cream... fun! Then we decided to come back early since we had a bit of a drive ahead of us back to DC. By the way, Baltimore drivers are NUTS.

Our last night at the hotel, and now I was starting to feel a bit queasy. Maybe it was the ice cream in Baltimore. Maybe I was just tired. Well, queasy turned into "don't touch me or I'll throw up". All night long, any movement threatened the inevitable. Keep in mind, I HATE throwing up. Some people just like to get it over with... but not me. I prolong and avoid it until it is no longer possible to keep it down. Well, I made it through the night...
But Saturday morning didn't go as well. Our check out time was 11am. And I had just thrown up at about 8am. I told my husband I appreciate his generosity but he should have kept his germs to himself. We were planning to spend the day in DC and then camping afterwards. I was in no position for either. I could hardly even walk to the bathroom. We asked for a check-out extension, and they let us stay until 1pm. Well, noon rolls around, and I'm still in bed unsure of what to do. Could I survive a 2 hour car ride home? Could we make it to the campground and enjoy that at all (we had pre-paid reservations)? Should we spend a lot of money to stay at the hotel another night (we had used hotel points and stayed free the last two nights)? Should we find another cheaper hotel to stay in? My wonderful husband, who did everything he could to make me feel better, went down to talk to the front desk. Who generously offered to let us stay there at the "government rate" (we were right near the Marine base, which probably helped). We also changed our camping reservations to Sunday-Monday instead of Saturday-Sunday. I slept through the rest of the afternoon, but then by about 6pm, I was feeling much better. Now what? Is it too late to go camping? Is it too late to NOT get charged for the hotel room? Back to all these decisions. Should we just stay? Will I still feel good in a few hours? Finally, we agreed to try camping. The hotel let us leave without any charge (they were really great), and the campground still had room for that night. Jonathan packed up everything and we checked out and got to the campground. He set up practically everything at the campsite, too. I was still pretty weak. That night was pretty unsettled because of all the little pinecone balls underneath our tent that kept me uncomfortable no matter how I changed sleeping positions. That, and still getting over being sick, I was extremely sensitive to everything so that probably didn't help.
Sunday morning, I was feeling a bit better but sore from sleeping on pinecones. It rained all morning (God's sense of humor... finally feel good enough to move and then we get stuck in our tent all morning). We decided to head out to IKEA for a few hours to let the rain pass. At IKEA we bought a rug to put on the tent floor so we'd sleep better that night (genius idea, worked wonders and was only $17!) Our second trip to IKEA in less than 2 months! Yay!
We came back to the campground and it was beautiful and sunny. We took a hike down to the Potomac inlet and watched the boats for a while, then played minigolf. I was starting to feel tired and a little off again, so Jonathan fought a wet firepit for an hour trying to get the fire and dinner started while I napped. We had soup and hot dogs (well, i didn't have hot dogs. didn't trust my stomach that much). Then I went to bed afterwards. I felt sick to my stomach again, but after Jonathan prayed for me, I felt a little better.
Monday morning we finally both felt pretty normal. After waking up at 7am to really obnoxious and loud crows cackling and cawing incessantly. We tore down our campsite by our 11am checkout time and decided heading home was the best option before any other disaster or sickness could befall us. ;)
We took an extended detour to find Subway, which didn't even exist apparently, so we ended up at Chic-fil-a, which we LOVE because it's like Pleasantville. Everyone there is so cheery. And the food is good too.
After lunch, we continued home... for about 10 miles until we saw this AMAZING old building on the side of the road. Photo op! We took another 5 mile detour on random back roads to find this place. Which turned out to be a grain mill from the late 1700's, which was located near some civil war activity too. Right next to the mill was a fairly large creek. We hiked upstream a quarter mile and waded knee deep in the cool water and explored and enjoyed the moment for a while. What a diamond in the rough of this weekend! Finally, we hiked back to our car in our half-wet clothes and headed home. Redbox texted me a free movie coupon for Monday, so we stopped at Walmart and got Slumdog Millionaire, which we enjoyed watching as the day came to an end.

All this to say, I grew in appreciation for what it means when we committed to "sickness and health"... Thankfully one of us was well while the other was sick and we were able to take care of each other. And throughout the weekend, we had mini-vacations where we both felt good and had a fun time together.

We celebrate our 1-year anniversary this Saturday, August 8th. What a year we've had and what a way to end it!