what's cooking?

About 3 months ago my husband and I went on the most romantic vacation of our lives. It was more romantic than our original honeymoon, or the "1st" second honeymoon. It almost was on the same romantic scale as our "3rd" edition! But hands down, the "4th" honeymoon was the most romantic.
Many of you are probably wondering about the amount of honeymoons we've taken. It's something we plan literally years in advance for: we plot, we make a payment plan, we look through travel books and study our "ports o'call" (2 of these have been cruises) and we anticipate our alone time.
Like many couples, long married or not, time together is an issue. If we're lucky, we get to see each other 1 entire day during the week. And if we're even luckier, that day is something more than spending the day running from one errand to another.
This latest honeymoon was in honor of our silver anniversary. We decided to have our vows renewed officially. Hey, we are still the hand-holding "get a room" couple we were before the kids, animals, opposite work schedules and other of life's adventures happened. We really wanted to "remarry each other". So we booked the cruise, booked the chapel and anticipated this special time for almost 3 years.
Now I would like to say that we ran up the gangplank, ran to our cabin, made wild passionate love at that very moment and only left the cabin for the ceremony-however the reality is: we had been up for over 24 hours (redeye flight), we were in the same stinky clothes we had started our workday in also the day before, our individual arthritic joints were compressed to a very uncomfortable point and we didn't look any better than we were feeling. But, you know what?
That was okay and even more romantic than what you're probably imagining. You see, along with the fact that we still get a warm fuzzy feeling every time we see each other walk into a room, we also love each other for being able to be honest about how we feel. So, we waited a few hours-actually that made it even better!
We got some food into us, some anti-inflammatories, received our clean clothes, took a nice warm shower (with each other I might add) and then, well, let's just say we officially started our 4th honeymoon.
The next evening, we went to the chapel, all dressed up and the captain officiated our renewal of vows. We were so nervous! I was actually more nervous this time than during our first ceremony! We had tears pouring down our cheeks. It was an absolutely beautiful evening. We then went to the specialty restaurant on board the ship. The staff there asked if we were newlyweds, we said for 25 years now. They were so impressed and really pulled out all the stops in their service. Other passengers came over to congratulate us.
We acted, felt and were newlyweds again that week. The time together and the ceremony was one we will never forget. I'm of the belief that part of what made it so special was that we really wanted to do this with and for one another. The anticipation made it all the finer.
Oh, just so you know, we've been planning next year's vacation for over a year and 2008? You'd better believe it's in the works.