Our Tenth Wedding Anniversary

April 7th war our tenth wedding anniversary, so before going any farther I'd just like to thank my wife saying "yes" and agreeing to share her life with me! While I wish to avoid the cliché about it seeming like only yesterday, it doesn't seem like we've been married for ten years! I don't claim to know all the secrets to a long-lasting and happy marriage, and while there are factors which are outside of our control, I can share what I know about my marriage.

I've found someone to share my life with and someone to share her life with me. I think that this is what most everyone is looking for, ultimately. Sure you might want this or that in your spouse or significant other, but you want to be able to share your happy moments as well as your sad ones, for better or worse as the vows often say.

In the beginning of most relationships there is the excitement of getting to know the other person, everything is new and exciting. While there is the honeymoon period to your marriage, you could also say that there is a honeymoon period to most of your relationships (regardless of if you are married or not). Some couples that have been married for a long time say that they do various things to keep the spirit of the honeymoon period alive and to keep their relationship exciting and new. Other couples do various things to rekindle the spirit of that honeymoon period. I think that you need to find some sort of balance so that this doesn't drive you and your spouse crazy with trying too hard and that you don't drown in the mundane parts of life or in all its tribulations.

I believe that common or shared interests are essential. Early in relationships you can have lots of differences, maybe even there is a spark or chemistry because you're so different than your significant other that drives your relationship, but later on it is helpful to have interests that you share. My wife and I both like to travel and learn about places that we haven't been before. We both get excited about visiting a new place that we haven't seen before, or going back to a place that we really enjoyed. Some couples have hobbies that they share together. The more things that you share that both enjoy, then this can also mean that more of your time together can be fun quality time that you both really enjoy.

Raising kids together can really help bring a couple together. In many marriages the children become the focus of our lives. When the kids are little there are the wonderful memories that you have of all the firsts and all the cute things that they do. Later on there is all the learning and development of your kids. A word of warning, while kids can bring couples closer together, they won't necessarily save a marriage. Not everyone wants kids and there is a lot of work and responsiblity that goes with having kids, so it is not a decission that should be made too lightly. It sure is hard to beat the satisfaction of seeing what good kids you have and somehow feeling somewhat responsible for that.

Mine is not a prefect relationship. In fact, if you were to ask my wife, I'm sure that she could list some things that I could do better in our relationship. What I think is important is to realize that nobody is perfect and not drive yourself crazy trying to find "the perfect relationship". On the other hand you also need to realize when you're not happy with the relationship and get out. If you're miserable now, why do you think that you'll be happy a year from now or farther down the road with your significant other. You also need to realize when you're in a toxic relationship and run. I've known lots of women who wanted to fix this or that guy, but it is really hard to change someone and being able to change someone into what you want sometimes makes them "unexciting" and "unattractive".

My wife has a German passport and nationality but she is American in her mind, soul, and heart. From early on she had an attraction to American things and people. She was an exhange student in high school and was able to spend some time in America. While she is German, she often felt herself being American. How does this lead to a successful marriage you might ask? It is hard to quantify, but this is one of those intangilbe things in our relationship that makes it work. I used to dream about living in Europe, and through my wife I've been able to do this. Through me, my wife was able to live in the U.S. for a year, have an American family that lovers her, and further cultivate her "Americaness". Maybe there is the secrete ingridient to marriage, that bonding or imprinting experience that draws the couple together. This might also be the "this is our story" component, every marriage and every relationship has its own "unique" story behind it.

I remember that my grandfather used to describe my grandmother as "good friend" when he talked about her to others. He used to say that talking to her about what happened to him during the course of his day was one of the things that bothered him the most after she died. I'd say that is one of the things that I was looking for, regardless of if I really knew it or not.

I remember before getting married having said that I thought that it should be harder to get married, to which one of my sisters said to be careful what you wished for. One of the things that I had meant by that statement was that was if people had to think more about marriage before getting married, there would be less divorces. When Christine and I said our wedding vows, we made a comitment to each other. While we've certainly been blessed, we both decided that that our vows meant something to us and that we were going to be there for each other

Couples need to find a way to disagree and to fight. This is one area where many marriages and relationships fall apart. It is darn near impossible that two people will ever agree on everything. You might be able to go a long time without finding and major disagreements but they are bound to happen and you need to be able to know that your relationship can survive the differences. How this is handled will vary with every couple and every relationship. If there are never any disagreements, you have to wonder if the relationship is in good shape, there might be warning signs. If one person is always going along with other person they might not care about all the small decisions but they might also be building up a resentment over always giving in.

Christine, thank you for taking me into your life and being my wife! I look forward to many more years to come. If you're interested you can read about how we met, the wedding, and another post that I wrote in honor our 7th Annivesary. I find it hard to believe that it has been ten years. When I think about couples celebrating 25 year anniversaries, that doesn't seem so far off now any more. I hope that everyone can find some to share their life with that makes them happy and is good for them.

Photo taken at the Wiesbaden Biebrich Schloss (castle) April 7, 2000.

Our Wedding

As Christine and I will be celebrating our eight wedding anniversary on April 7^th, I have been giving some thought to our wedding (Hochzeit, in German). Most every married couples has some story to tell about their wedding, maybe there was something really unusual about the ceremony, the location; or collection of misfortunes, things that didn’t go according to plan or went totally wrong. A wedding is one of those life events for the participants, so most everything occurring at this time is amplified exponentially. Some things that taken in any other context would be considered minor, can on this day, become extreme highs and lows and often the day’s events build. The story of how we met gave us an interesting start as a couple, so why wouldn’t our wedding be memorable too? Without further adieu, here is the story that is our wedding.

Initial Planning

Shortly after I had purposed, we started planning the wedding. I had always wanted to get married in Europe at a castle, so I was intrigued by the possibilities. In Germany couples often have two weddings. The official wedding is somewhat like a civil wedding and is how a couple is legally married. Half of couples getting married will only do the civil wedding. The other half of couples getting married will have a ceremony in a church (kirchliche Trauung), so that they can be married in the eyes of God. The church ceremony has no legal standing.

We looked around at a few castles and decided upon the Biebrich Schloss for our civil ceremony. Biebrich belongs to Wiesbaden (not too far from Frankfurt); in fact it is often referred to as Wiesbaden-Biebrich. Christine knew an American bishop through having been a member of the Wiesbaden International Newborn Gospel Choir, and we arranged to have him perform the church service. We decided that we would have the church service at the same church where Christine’s parents had been married and that she was baptised at.

The Visa Situation

Weddings can be difficult enough anyways but when you add an international element to it, they can become pretty complicated. Because we wanted to marry in Germany, there was a requirement that I provide proof that I hadn’t been married before. I hate to imagine how complicated things would have been had I been married previously! I ended up going to the American Consulate in Frankfurt and getting a sworn statement that I had not been married before. Christine had been offered an Ex-Pat training assignment by one of the American managers that she had dealings with, so it was planned that she would come and live in the U.S. for a year and a half. One of the next biggest problems became that she needed a visa to enter into the U.S. I had heard horror stories about couples where one was American, they wed outside of the U.S. and then immigrations would not let the spouse in. While getting the necessary green card/visa was not guaranteed, it could take the couple up to a year and a half or longer. We were now hoping that she would get a training visa through work, if that didn’t work we would have needed to get a fiancée visa which would have allowed Christine to come into the U.S. and for us to then get married there. You needed to apply for a fiancée visa three months before it is needed. It all seemed very complicated and would have required the timing to be just right, something that I wanted to avoid.

Because of not knowing how the visa situation was going to turn out, we had to have a few plans. Plan A was that the training visa comes through and we can go with the wedding ceremonies as planned. Plan B was that we would have skipped the legal ceremony, had a church wedding in Germany, applied for a Fiancée visa and got married in the U.S. This would have meant that we would have been married in the eyes of God, but not legally. We didn’t know till the Friday before that she got the training visa so we could go ahead with Plan A!

Arrival of The Groom

I arrived at Frankfurt airport two days before the wedding. Matt (our best man) and Tracy (a friend of his) had flown with me. Shortly after walking through customs and meeting Christine, Tracy made the observation this was really our third date. We all kind of thought about that for a moment or two, Christine and I didn’t have any doubts as to if we were doing the right thing or not. That day Christine and I picked out wedding rings. We also had a session with an interpreter, I was told that this was required so that I understood what was going on and couldn’t claim later on that I thought that I was buying a washing machine or something like that.

The Groom's Parent Arrive

The day before wedding my parents were flying in, along with my friend Kurt and his wife Julie. Before leaving Christine’s apartment that morning I asked if I would need my passport that day, when Christine said that I wouldn’t, I promptly placed it on my bigger suitcase under a jacket or something and all thoughts about it vanished. Because of all the people that we were picking up, we tried to organize things so that Christine and I could lead my parents and their rental car to their hotel, while Kurt and Julie would follow Claudia (our maid of honor) back to the hotel. As luck would have it, my friend got separated which threw things off a little. We did finally all arrive at the hotel.

The Dress

Christine and I needed to go for the final dress adjustments and to find an outfit for me to wear. In order to fit Christine, my parents, and her mom and into one car (and avoid anyone else getting lost), we took my parents rental car to the bridal shop and Claudia re-parked Christine’s car. I found something to wear and they took Christine’s measurements to make the final adjustments. We now ran into the problem that the dress wouldn’t be ready till that afternoon, so we’d have to come back to pick it up. We had lunch and returned back to my parents’ hotel. We were approaching the time that the dress was to be ready and my dad suggested that we take their rental to pick it up. We did this and went to put the dress in Christine’s apartment, but guess what? Because we didn’t have her car, we didn’t have her apartment key. We found a neighbour that was home so we were able to leave the dress with the neighbour.

The Rehearsal

We drove back to my parents’ hotel and I left my suit there. We then had to head off to the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. We arrived at the church and waited for the maintenance guy to open it up. The church had not apparently been in use that day prior to our rehearsal, so it was cold. The rehearsal seemed like pure chaos to me and I was wondering how this was really going to work, when I heard my mom ask if there was going to be heat the next day at the wedding. My mom was almost always cold, so it wasn’t surprising that she would be concerned about this, but it only intensified the moment for me.

The Groom Gets Lost

The rehearsal dinner went well, everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoyed the food. After the rehearsal dinner Kurt and I went to an Irish Pub where one of Christine’s cousins was to meet us, he had told her that he wanted to throw me a bachelor party. After a few beers, Kurt and I then proceeded back to his hotel. After some difficulty we did finally get to his hotel and after some problems parking in the tight parking lot at the hotel, we decided to walk to Claudia’s apartment. Because it has been a superstition in my family that you shouldn’t see the bride before the wedding, I made arrangements to stay at Claudia’s apartment which was very close to the church and not too far from where the civil ceremony was to take place. I wasn’t sure how to get to her place while Kurt didn’t remember the way either. We walked around trying to find Claudia’s apartment and then we decided to take a taxi. The taxi dropped me off in front of the church and I told Kurt that he could go on back to the hotel. I walked all around the church looking for Claudia’s apartment but I couldn’t find it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any phone numbers on me so I could not really call anyone.

After a while my bladder kicked in and I was getting concerned about that. I was thinking that I didn’t want to get arrested in a foreign country for peeing in public. I was beginning to wonder if I would find Claudia’s apartment and if I would be able to make it to my wedding. All seemed to be lost, and then it occurred to me that maybe this was not the right church. I decided to walk further down the street to see if there was another church. That was the case. Claudia had given the Americans (except me) a tour earlier where she pointed out that the church that the cab driver had dropped me off in front of was the wrong church!

Because the door buzzers weren’t lit very well, I accidentally rang Claudia’s parents, who lived in the building next to Claudi. They let Claudia know that I was on my way. I arrived at Claudia’s apartment and she gave me the toiletry items that Christine had dropped by at my request. The stranger in a strange land anxiety had not left me and I was so relieved to be at Claudia’s apartment!

Will the Wedding Happen?

Early the next morning, Claudia told me that Christine had called and wanted to know where my passport was. I told Claudia that I thought that it was around my suitcase and I proceeded to take my shower. At my parents’ hotel, dad told me that mom had lost a lot of hair that morning. Mom had been battling cancer and the day after the wedding, my dad shaved off her remaining hair, so is was nice that she had most of her hair for all the pictures that were to be taken on this day!

Christine had been in a panic because she couldn’t find my passport, and her cousin who was supposed to pick her up in an old timer (a 1938 Lancia, I believe) was nowhere to be seen. Christine was waiting outside dressed in her gown waiting for her cousin. People drove by and honked at her all excited to see the bride in her wedding gown, which only made her more nervous. She was thinking about driving herself when she did finally get her ride to the castle. Claudia, my parents, my friends and I were at the castle waiting for Christine at this point. When Christine arrived she was all worried because we didn’t have my passport and the whole ordeal about being driven to the castle, and so on. My dad started to take some pictures of her, clearly stress, she promptly told him that now was not a good time to take pictures. Most of my life a driver’s license was the main from of identification, but driver’s licenses are not accepted as proof of nationality and identity in many international situations, so without a passport there was the possibility that the magistrate might have refused to marry us. We went into the castle and wanted to explain the situation, so that we could determine if we could even have the wedding. Our interpreter was sitting in an office waiting for us and she vouched for us, so we were able to have the civil wedding.

A couple of minutes into the ceremony, Christine realized that it was really going to work and we were really going to get married and she became relieved and was able to enjoy the ceremony. One thing that struck me about the ceremony was that they identified the participants by name, address, and occupation. I can still hear the magistrate and the interpreter saying “Matt Neumann, stagehand” (Matt’s primary employment at the time was doing stage setup, teardown, and occasionally spotlights at some area concern venues).

The Church Service

After going through the civil wedding, I wasn’t the slightest bit nervous at the church ceremony, because we were already legally married. I was able to enjoy the ceremony and marvel at the beauty of the church. The church ceremony was done in English with a friend of Christine’s translating into German. Matt and Claudia both read selected passages from the bible, Matt’s in English, while Claudia’s was in German. The gospel choir, that Christine belonged to, sang and were well received. The ceremony was nice and went well. After the church ceremony a log was set up in front of the church door and we had to use a hand saw to cut it. The log represents the first challenge that the married couple will face together.

The Reception

We had a nice small reception in a local restaurant. We asked a friend and neighbour of Christine to be our DJ. He had never done this before, but he did a good job and had fun (thank you Christian!). Christine had made a seating chart but things got mixed up and some people ended up sitting in different spots. At many weddings that I have attended, it is common that the people at the reception will strike their glass with a spoon and then the bride and groom are supposed to kiss. In Germany, when somebody strikes their glass with a spoon, it is because they wish to make a toast, so that custom didn’t work very well.

Between courses we all took a walk over to a park belonging to the Biebrich Schloss. We all stopped at a large tree that had a bench wrapped around it. Christine stopped and announced to everyone that at that exact spot was the first place that her father kissed her mother and she pulled out a picture of her father that she had been holding in her dress all day and told everyone that her father was a part of our big day. Christine’s father had passed away in 1993. I was touched by her inclusion of her father in the days events.

This was my first German wedding and reception (Hochzeitsfest or Hochzeitsfeier), so I wasn’t familiar with what happens at a reception. Christine’s friend Ute had placed several almonds decoratively on sheets of paper, one for every week of the year following our wedding date, and all the guests received at least one. During your week you’re supposed to contact the couple during your week, so that the couple knew that they had the support of friends and family. This was even a nicer idea when you consider that Christine was going to spend the next year in the U.S. and might occasionally feel homesick. Christine’s friend Anette organized a couple of games that were well received. Nicole, our DJ’s wife, had created this board with kids clothes on it, with holes for me to sick my head through the hole so that I was wearing what appeared to be a kid’s hat and kids clothes, while there were other holes where Christine put her hands and they appeared to be my hands. The way that it was set up, she could not see my face, so you can imagine some of the things that Nicole had Christine feed me tried to give me to drink. Most of our guests were thoroughly amused and laughed pretty hard while this was going on. I managed to move my head so that I could eat and drink everything alright up until a beer at the end.

I don’t really remember how it started, but a few of the women were in the mood to do some line dancing. Christian was rummaging through the CDs trying to find songs that would work for line dancing. Christian had done an excellent job as our DJ. Everyone enjoyed themselves and we had a very memorable reception.

Like many other couples, we’ll never forget our wedding. I’m really glad that my parents and some of my friends were able to attend. Going to Europe is something that many Americans would like to do, but so many people don’t ever get to do it. I was glad that my mom was able to Germany as a result of our wedding. Weddings can bring out the best of people and they can give us so much hope. It is nice to think about a couple getting married and wondering what adventures their marriage will bring them. It is nice to see the family bonds strengthened or renewed at weddings, to see families reaching out to welcome a new son in-law or daughter in-law. A nice spring or summer wedding on a nice day can give really lift your spirits. So this is more or less the story of our wedding. On your wedding day every bride is a princess, it is her day, and to all the brides, their groom is their prince, regardless of if he came riding in on that white horse in shinning armour or not. While I might not have been raised of nobility, we did get married in a castle and had a wedding I’ll never forget.

Before I forget, the video at the top of this post is a slide show that I made last year in honor of our anniversary and posted to our channel at YouTube. It is made up of the pictures taken by our wedding photographer. How about your wedding? What was memorable about your wedding? If you like blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.

How We Met

As Christine and I will be celebrating our eight wedding anniversary on April 7^th, I thought that I would share the story of how we met. My apologies for those of you already familiar with it, if you don’t wish to hear it again, then please skip this post.

I was looking through our global address book at work (within our email systems) and I happen to run across Christine’s name in it. This email system at the time let you know what home server was for the company employees contained within the global address book and I noticed that she was listed on a server that I thought had to be in Germany. I decided to write her an email that stated something like you’re probably wondering who I am and that I thought it would be nice to have a penpal in Germany. A little time passed (including recovery from an inline skating accident) before Christine answered my email.

We exchanged several emails, snail mails, phone calls, and then she decided to use some of her vacation time to come meet me. She booked a flight to see me and then was going to fly to visit an aunt in California. One of her friends asked if she was afraid that I might turn out to be some serial killer or something, to which she replied that wasn’t who I was.

We packed a lot of things into Christine's visit. We took a nice trip to Chicago, a stayed at a nice bed and breakfast in Luddington, and a wonderful bed and breakfast on Macinac Island. I took her to one of the annual Heron Family reunions/picnics, pretty brave on her part when I think about it, as my dad comes from a family of nine and so there were usually a lot of people at these events. I took her to see one of the last baseball games at Tiger Stadium. Between vacation days and weekends we spent 10 days together on that trip, then it was on to California to visit her aunt.

Immediately after she left my sisters and mom let me know that I should not let her go and I started thinking about visiting Christine that Christmas. I also decided that I would purpose while the fireworks were going off and 2000 was a brand new year.

I arrived a Frankfurt airport on Christmas Eve, 1999. A little later we drove to Christine’s mother’s apartment for a visit. Ilona, Christine’s mom, had taken a beginning English class to be able to talk to me and she worked out this nice little “Welcome to Taunusstein” speech, something that I found really neat. To test the waters so to speak, I had gotten Christine a necklace, placed it in a ring box, and presented it to her as a Christmas present. Both Christine and her mom were relieved when the box was opened and it was only a necklace! I attended a Christmas Eve service in a church in the little village that Christine’s Aunt Marion lived and I met some of Christine's family. At this point I was feeling the effects of jet lag, the time difference, and lack of sleep, so that might have all factored in to make things larger than life, but they were larger than life for me.

We did some nice trips and spent some good quality time together before New Year’s Eve was upon us. We went off to see the fireworks over Wiesbaden prior to 12pm. Immediately after the New Year had started, with fireworks still going off fast and furious, in a quite moment I told Christine that I had forgotten to give her a Christmas present that it was in my coat pocket, if she would pull it out. She pulled out the ring box, opened it up and at this time I had gotten on one knee and purposed. She immediately said yes. She showed her mom the ring and they both cried together. Later on Christine had told me when I had given her the ring box earlier she was really hoping that it wasn’t a ring inside, but by the time New Year’s Eve had come there wasn’t any doubt in her mind about if she would say yes or not. Christine planned a New Year’s Eve party for me so all of us went back to her apartment and continued the celebration. I sent off an email to some friends and family to tell them that Christine had said yes.

I'll be posting the story or our wedding after I have a chance to finish writing it, so stay tuned. If you like blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments. The picture in this post is one that I recently put together in honor of our anniversary, it is a collage of various wedding pictures that we have.

Christmas 2007 Newletter

Here is the Christmas newsletter that I composed for 2007.Merry Christmas everyone! As 2007 draws to an end, we thought that we would have a look at what happened to the Heron family this past year.



We were very happy that Grandpa and Aunt Betty paid us a visit in April/May. We were glad to be able to spend some quality time them in addition to show them our home and the “new” neighborhood. Darryl went with them to Scotland and Paris. Aside from wanting to see Scotland, Darryl has wanted to go to Paris for many years, so he was pretty excited about both trips. They were here to witness our new stone patio being put in. Darryl’s father had a heart attack in October and ended up having a double by-pass. He has since returned home and appears to be doing well. Darryl was able to fly back to Michigan to be there for the surgery, so he did get to see his sisters and their kids briefly as well. On a sadder note, Darryl’s Aunt Helen passed away last summer.



Our family did some smaller trips this year. We went to Zurich to celebrate the first communion of Felix (Christine’s godson) and visited Europa Park on the way back. Anna was really excited about the rides and Sarah was a little more apprehensive. They both look forward to going back next year when they should be able to do even more rides. We visited Ute and her family in Holland as well as visiting former neighbours of ours from when we stayed in Belgium. The girls really enjoyed both of those trips.




The girls have adjusted well to their kindergarten and have made some friends in our neighbourhood. Both girls are attending a local dance class and are currently working on a Smurf dance to be performed as part of the Carnival celebrations next year. They’ll be angels in a nativity play performed by their Sunday school group at the Christmas Eve service. They just recently joined a church choir. Anna is looking forward to starting first grade next year. Sarah is still very much into princesses. Anna started wearing glasses a few months ago and likes them a lot (some what of a fashion statement I think). She also recently got here ears pierced. And for those you who were wondering, Anna’s new pink diamond ear rings go well with her glasses!



Christine started teaching again last year and it continues to go well. She decided to participate in post graduate program on Teaching German as a Second language, so every six weeks she spends a Saturday in seminar. In addition there is an online component to the class, complete with a forum. Christine should be finishing it up early next year.

In January, Darryl found out that he has type 2 diabetes, so while he doesn’t take insulin injections, he does take medicine and has to watch what he eats. He has been busy with the family blog. He regularly updates it and posts pictures to Flickr and videos to YouTube. He also started up a productivity blog and is trying to make a go of it at the moment.

We’re looking forward to 2008 and hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season and a great new year.

Simpsonized

Simpsonized

I found out that you can turn photos into Simpson's characters. I first read about this here. So without further adieu here we are as Simpsons....

Intertesting

Wikipedia

Many of you are probably familiar with Wikipedia. It is a web-based encyclopedia edited by its users (here is the official "Wikipedia about"). This site is one of the more famous wikis. While this is not an academic web site, it is a handy place to get quick information on a subject. Posted towards the end of most entries are a list of sources used in that entry, so that you can probe further if you would like or maybe you might care to do some fact checking on the entry. This site has grown into one of the more popular ones on the net. Subject to the rules and conditions of the site, almost anyone can become a member allowing them to post and edit entries. If you know a lot about a subject and believe that an area of that subject is incomplete or inaccurate, this would be an opportunity for you to contribute. Some of Wikipedia's sister projects include the following sites: dictionary, news, learning, open content textbooks, quotations, free content publications, and media.

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