Eleven Years

Saturday was our eleventh anniversary! We spent almost the entire day with my family. We went through the temple with Mike, which was cool because we got to visit the sealing room where we were married. And then went to dinner with everyone and had lots of fun. That was our anniversary. (I did also get a dozen roses, so there was a little romance in there somewhere.)
Chelsea marked her fifth by telling the story of how they met, but as I've thought about our eleven years together, I've remembered our vehicles.
I know, it's so romantic.
When we were married, I had Jim (short for James), a trusty old Plymouth Caravelle. Because of his lazy teenage owner, I'm afraid people rarely saw what color he was really supposed to be. But that's ok, because underneath all that dirt... He was still brown!
Jef had Bessie, a B2000 Sundowner. She was a sweet little pickup truck that went with us through many engagement adventures. She somehow survived it all, but I think died of a broken heart because Jef had another woman in his life after all that time they'd spent together.
Jim died in a cloud of smoke somewhere between here and Cedar City, and Bessie died a slow death, finally resting for the last time in Monroe.
Then we got Ali. A sporty little black Acura. The sunroof wouldn't ever work quite right, and it took three people to pull a pregnant lady out of it, but it served us well until the number of carseats our family required finally outgrew the backseat.
Then on to Homema (Ho-may-muh). Homema when originally purchased was a green Dodge Caravan with wood panelling on the sides. 277,000 miles later she is now blue, red, maroon, and green. But she's still kicking! I think Jef is really really hoping that she'll make it to 300,000. Just so he can say she did.
Somewhere in here, I should mention the Color Country Cleaning van. During Jef's time as a carpet cleaner, it was how I gave directions to our house. Just look for the great big van... But the poor thing died suddenly when the tree in front of our house was blown over in a wind storm. Blown over right onto the carpet cleaning van. We got on the front page for that one! And that ended Jef's career in carpet cleaning.
Our next vehicle never really got a proper name. Jef tried to name it Winney, but it never really stuck. Poor thing has just been called "The White Van," and I'm sure it feels bad about its painfully generic name. But the lack of power windows lowered its value in my eyes, and I wasn't ever quite thrilled with it. Maybe that's why it never got a name.
And now we have Max the Suburban. Max has the ability to carry nine people in seatbelts, plus several paragliding kites. This makes him invaluable. His air conditioning actually works, and he has those power windows that I never appreciated before The White Van. His one failing, however, is a big one. He's a gas hog. Of course he is. You can't expect him to do all those amazing things on nothing, can you? But unfortunately he ends up parked much of the time because we just can't afford his big appetite.
Our family vehicles have steadily increased in size through the years, and I don't see how we could get any bigger without making the jump to a 12 or 15 passenger van. But I'm hoping that this is the top of the graph, and from here we'll start to get smaller again. On the other hand, if the price of gas doesn't go way down, this may be the end of the story. We'll just be riding our bikes for the next eleven years. Haven't named those, yet. Maybe we'd better start.