Day of our 25th Anniversary

Our anniversary day started out with breakfast prepared by Executive Chef Adam with his team of crack sous chefs. We waited for breakfast impatiently, forks and spoons in hand.

The kids took dozens (maybe hundreds) of pictures of us on our anniversary. It was a bona fide photo shoot, with posed and candid shots on the dock at home, on the channel at the Hack-Ma-Tack, and in the restaurant (mostly on their iPads). We're going to collect them somewhere--maybe on the Flickr page.

All day it felt as if we were in a place called 25th Anniversary, the stars-for-a-day of a show that only couples lucky enough to make it 25 years (and want to brag about it) can inhabit. It felt almost like a wedding.

Here are the kids, all gussied up for dinner at the Hack-Ma-Tack. Representing themselves and the other kids, they hosted our anniversary dinner, made the first toast (25 years....WOW), and made us feel special in every way possible. Our meals were wonderful - Adam, Tomi, and Dad had the Diamond Jim Rib Eye (22 oz.) and as I am typing this my online editor Ashley is thinking "I wish I had been there." Grandpa Woodruff picked up the tab for dinner, and we made a video to thank him. 

Our anniversary gift: a beautiful wind chime, personalized for us. Each tube on the chime says, "All because two people fell in love..." And the implied end of the sentence: "...we have this wonderful blended family known as the Stock Family by Choice."

When I talked to Grandpa, he said, "tell Ken I'm glad he was such an easy pick-up." (Hee hee, me too.)

The whole day was wonderful, and little did we know there was more to come when all the other kids arrived.