Celebrating in slow motion

Five years ago, Jack and I flew to Las Vegas and got married. At the time, it just seemed like the easiest way to do it, considering our families live far from us -- and in opposite directions. Now, looking back, getting married in Sin City couldn't have been more fitting for Jack and me. We really are not your average couple.

We only live together half the time, we have no children, and we come from very different backgrounds. Still, for us, it works -- we work.

We're both quite adventurous. We've done some crazy things together (Or, rather, I've put up with some of Jack's crazy impulses.) We chased Oklahoma tornadoes, popped in on an airplane crash wreckage site, housed some strangers, rappelled off bluffs, explored really, really scary caves, and the list goes on.

Through it all, I've only run away once, and have only broken one cell phone. If Jack only would have realized the woman is always right, he may have prevented me from pretending to be a baseball pitcher in the living room.

Despite our differences, we both have a hard time sitting still. We rarely spend our free weekends together at home. Instead, we go, go, go.

When we got married, we figured July 5th would be a great time to celebrate our anniversary each year. We've not taken big trips, but we typically make a weekend trip each year to celebrate our anniversary. We had always planned to go to Hawaii for our fifth year anniversary.

But planning doesn't usually work out for us. I didn't have the vacation time to take off for a big trip this year. Rather than taking another spur of the moment trip to Nashville, Alabama, or Gatlinburg, we opted to do things a little different this year.

We decided to celebrate by staying home, forcing ourselves to plant our butts on the couch, eat at home and watch movies. Now that would be something different. The one catch was that Jack said we had to relax. No projects; no work allowed.

We did, however, agree to do an nice dinner out on the evening of our anniversary, last Sunday.

Friday came and the extent of our day was a trip to the gym and three movies at home. (I highly recommend "Revolutionary Road" with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, and Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino.") Saturday came and I felt like being even more lazy. A couple more movies later, we were ready to grill out at home.

The only thing I hate about eating at home is doing the dishes. After dinner, Jack and I were in a rush to get things picked up so we could head out to the local fireworks show. As we tag teamed kitchen duty, I handed Jack a jar of mayonnaise to put in the refrigerator. Of course, in the transfer, it slipped out of my -- his -- hands and splattered all over me and the rest of the kitchen.

We didn't make it to the show early, but we did share a really good, and much needed, laugh together.

I was ready to continue our state of laziness into the final day of our long, anniversary weekend together. But Jack just couldn't do it.

"Let's take a ride," he said.

"To where?" I moaned.

"Lizzie can come with us," he said.

"OK, I'm in!"

We headed to Fall Creek Falls, a place I'd never been. We took a short hike, a swim in a creek and scoped out the lodge and some other activities offered at the state park. I was really impressed and by the end of the afternoon, Jack and I had booked a room at the lodge for the following week.

Staying home was great ... but like I said, it just doesn't happen often. And Heaven forbid we stay home two weekends in a row!

On our way home we realized that we had forgotten we had planned to do a "nice" dinner somewhere to celebrate our anniversary. It wasn't The Melting Pot or Emil's (two restaurants I've been anxious to try) or The Stockyard, Morton's or The Palm (some of our favorites), but Cracker Barrel sounded really good -- and for some reason, I'm confident that this anniversary will be just as memorable, if not more so, as those that have passed.

-- Sadie Fowler is lifestyles editor at the Times-Gazette. Her columns, Sadie Says and Simply Delish, run every Sunday. If you would like to submit a recipe, contact Fowler at sfowler@t-g.com or 684-1200 ext. 214.