Quotable Quotes for a 20th Wedding Anniversary

DO WE REMEMBER?

A woman awakes during the night to find that her
husband was not in their bed.

She puts on her dressing gown and goes downstairs to
look for him.

She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a
hot cup of coffee in front of him. He appears to be
in deep thought, just staring at the wall.

She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and
takes a sip of his coffee.

'What's the matter, dear?' she whispers as she steps
into the room, 'Why are you down here at this time
of night?'

The husband looks up from his coffee, 'I am just
remembering when we first met 20 years ago and
started dating. You were only 16. Do you remember
back then?' he says solemnly.

The wife is touched to tears thinking that her
husband is so caring, so sensitive.

'Yes, I do' she replies.

The husband pauses. The words were not coming
easily.

'Do you remember when your father caught us in the
back seat of my car?'

'Yes, I remember!' said the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him.

The husband continues. 'Do you remember when he
shoved the shotgun in my face and said, 'Either you
marry my daughter, or I will send you to jail for 20
years?'

'I remember that too' she replies softly.

He wipes another tear from his cheek and says...

'I would have been released today.'

Entitled “Do men remember anniversaries?” this funny story was forwarded to me roughly two years ago. I saw it again in my computer as I looked for good material in my computer and various sites in the internet for my own 20^th wedding anniversary which will be tomorrow, Jan. 26.

Levity aside, wedding anniversaries are excellent occasions for married couples to celebrate their love for one another and remember why they tied the knot in the first place!

The tradition to celebrate wedding anniversaries, particularly the silver (25^th) and golden (50^th) are said to have been traced to medieval Germanic Europe where silver and gold wreaths were given to the wives by their husbands, friends or neighbors in recognition of their long and harmonious relationship. During those times, these anniversaries were known respectively as silver wedding-day and golden wedding-day. In time, symbols in the said Germanic tradition expanded and had certain materials assigned to various stages of married life. In principle, commonly used household items were the assigned gifts to aid the young couple. In later years, luxurious gifts were given as the couple was expected to have obtained the things they would normally require in their daily lives.

In 1937, the American National Retail Jewellery Association came up with a more comprehensive list of symbolic materials for all the traditional wedding anniversaries for each year up to the 15^th anniversary and then for every fifth year after that until the 60^th anniversary. Still, the gifts may slightly vary from one country to another but the major anniversaries seem to have more or less the same gifts. For instance, many countries generally assign the following gifts to these major occasions: 5th Wooden, 10th Tin, 15th Crystal, 20th China, 25th Silver, 30th Pearl, 40th Ruby, 50th Golden, 60th Diamond.

Diamond is well known to be associated with the 75^th anniversary but in the United Kingdom it was also used for the 60^th anniversary after Queen Victoria’s 60 years reign was described as her ‘Diamond Jubilee’.

The traditional gift for a 20^th wedding anniversary was china. The modern assigned gift for the same occasion was changed to platinum.

There is also a list of flower gifts assigned to important wedding anniversaries. For the 20^th anniversary they assigned the flower Aster.

So what quotable quotes about wedding anniversaries did I see in the internet? A lot.

It goes without saying that each passing day and year for a married couple is or should be special but would probably differ in importance and meaning for every couple. Having said that, most quotations may actually be applicable not only for a given number of years together as a married couple. In addition wedding anniversary quotations can be funny, serious, tender or spicy. Often short but concise, it should warm up people with its wit and subtlety.

Take the case of the quotation attributed to Robert Bridges - “Unto us all, our days are love’s anniversaries. Each one in turn hath ripened something of happiness.”

Another is attributed to Beverly Nichols. He was quoted in saying something like “between prose and poetry, the first chapter in marriage is with the latter.” The rest is presumably with the former!

An anonymous person is said to have uttered “Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye-opener!”

From Ogden Nash - “To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the loving cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up!”

Interestingly, an old Chinese proverb popularly used for anniversaries teaches us a similar bit of wisdom as, “married couples who love each other tell each other a thousand things without talking.”

Perfect for a silver wedding anniversary are Mark Twain’s famous words about marriage: “Love seems the swiftest, but the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.”

Consequently, Paul Sweeney summarizes everything in this quote: “A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.”

Let me end with one of my personal favorites, a commonly used poignant quotation from Mignon McLaughlin, “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

As I ask for your prayers for my marriage, may the good Lord also bless your own marriages with peace, prosperity and happiness!

"Hot Girl Shreds On Guitar"

I told myself I should write something explosive to start the New Year, 2011.

A couple of weeks ago, by some act of serendipity, I had the chance to view a video of this young girl exceptionally playing the electric guitar.

Entitled “Hot Girl Shreds on Guitar”, the video on MSN featured the musical talent of Juliette Valduriez, playing her guitar rendition of ‘Lost Paradise’ (extended solo version).

Her performance blew my mind!

One viewer commented, “Now this is every musicians dream girl! She's got some real talent.” That she has…that she has.

But don’t take my word for it, check out Juliette at the below mentioned video.

Amazing, right?

Later I came across other cover performances by this fair rock maiden eventually discovering she has an account with YouTube named “JulietteVmusic’s Channel where you could see and hear her other cover performances on the net.

There I learned that Juliette is a 23-year old girl from Paris, France. She joined the YouTube community just April of last year but has obviously been gaining a large fan base since then.

I’m almost a hundred percent sure we’ll hear of bigger things to come Juliette’s way. I pray that she remains modest in her new found and growing musical success.

I end this post with another one of her earlier performances on the net. Enjoy!

A Post-Christmas Winter Adventure at Winter Funland

It was a post-Christmas winter adventure.

The New Year had just started, the Christmas vacation had gone quite quickly and we were still yearning for another “major, major” fun activity at least before the resumption of work and classes.

Christmas lights along Roxas Boulevard still brightly lights the evening

That activity was one experience I had been planning for some time. To feel cool wintry weather complete with snow and all, without leaving the country! That’s what one of Star City’s famous attractions, “Winter Funland” claims to give its patrons.

Nearing Star City - home of the Winter Funland

I don’t know what those globes are - but they’re definitely not snow!

Not surprisingly, the entertainment center located at the reclamation area near Roxas Blvd. was still filled with people that weekend even in the evening, surely with the same intent of maximizing their remaining vacation time with loved ones.

A cowboy mime artist at work entertains the people

Long queues were everywhere along the area for rides and other attractions. The line for Winter Funland was very long. Longer than any other line I reckon. Long enough for us to even buy and eat some merienda while waiting in line for the winter area attraction.

Long queues everywhere

As we came near the entrance, we were given plastic bags for our electronic gadgets, protection I believe for the cold temperature and the moistness that might occur. Each of us was given a jacket before we entered the funland area. I think it was a good one hour before we got inside but it was all worth it!

Picture taking is not allowed inside the funland so I could fully explain the “fun” we all experienced inside. First of all, it was really darn cold! Chilly enough to put mist in our breaths and numbness to our hands and faces.

The freezing temperature enabled us to make snowballs from the ice you could shovel at one area. Maybe not enough for a snowman but you could have a decent snowball fight inside.

There were two designated areas where you could have your picture taken. One was beside an igloo and the other was a park scene with a wooden bench. We had our family pictures taken at both areas as our only visual memento inside this winter wonderland.

The main draw inside was of course the ice sled area! One climbs up a stairway leading to an elevated portion where you slide down the ice riding on some sort of an inflated rubber sled. It was a short ride but fast enough to give you a few thrills. I couldn’t fully control my descent as the sled tends to turn as you go down. If you’re not careful, you might just get a nasty bump here and there.

The kids obviously loved the ride despite the numerous people and icy temperature. I think we stayed for around thirty to forty five minutes inside before going out.

Small world - Relatives from my mother’s side were also there at Star City

Later that night inside the Star City premises, we met Tito Manoling along with some other relatives from my mother’s side of the family as we came out from Tropical Hut Restaurant where we had our dinner.

We didn’t go for any other rides but rather concentrated in scouring the tiangge section looking for interesting stuff to buy. That evening, the boys’ toy gun collection just got bigger and Faith also had a new toy to play with.

It is interesting to observe that most of the long lines had disappeared near the midnight hour. Mental note: If we wanted to try the Winter Funland attraction again, (or some other attractions) this was the best time to do so!

We’ll be back!

At this point of our lives, we do not have the resources to go to a country as a family to experience Christmas winter. But Winter Funland surely gave us a sufficing glimpse of things that are yet to come! In the meantime, from the looks of it, it was a fun ‘winter’ adventure bound to be repeated in the near future.