Off to celebrate my 48th wedding anniversary.

good to hear your hubby skipped the gym. We are married now for almost 7 years and its everything but easy........

It worked out because he was willing to skip going to the gym, so we were only an hour off schedule. Marriage is work, but a life-long marriage is worth the investment it takes to build it.

It was a great one. I appreciate your congratulations.

He did get back in time and we even had time for a walk we used to take often when we lived in Newbury Park. I'll post more about that later. I have posted several pictures from this trip in previous responses in this discussion. The one below is one we took on our way south. It was taken near Gaviota State Beach, which is three beaches north of Santa Barbara.

Awesome! Sounds like a great way to celebrate. I've enjoyed your pictures.

I will check the other boxes. I am glad you had a good time. I am so sorry Hubby is sick. I hope he feels better real soon.

I saw the pictures! They are wonderful!

Sarah, I posted all the pictures I had time to process in the previous responses since you posted this, so you might want to come back and see them. We had a great time. Today Hubby is sick. Guess all the festivities were too much for him. We had a late night last night -- got home about 10, checked mail, put stuff away that we had to use last night, etc. I came home to find my internet had lost its connection, so instead of checking my email and my sites like myLot and HubPages, I had to start calling ATT tech support at 10:30 PM when I was exhausted to get my modem reset. Bummer. But heck! You don't know you're home until you have your first computer problem, Today I've got to catch up on work.

WAlking the gardens with my friends was fun and relaxing. We didn't sign up for a tour, but a docent found us as we walked and joined us when we were at the Japanese Garden. We might as well have been on the tour, since he explained everything we were seeing. I think you might enjoy it. I never did see the haystacks you saw. Maybe they moved them before we drove through.

I don't have any more pictures to post tonight, but i posted several scattered throughout the previous responses.

reading what you wrote here made me feel at ease in a sense that it's not only me but others too that also have their disagreements in a marriage. it's good advice that you've written here, one which i'm sure everyone will agree. i agree with all especially the last sentence. we do learn to be more unselfish when we have children. they teach us in a way. thanks for sharing. i'm glad that it's been good with you and hope it still is.

That trip was good for us. We've been flirting like newlyweds since we got home. Years 4-14 were pretty rocky, though, and back then I wasn't sure we'd make it ,either. We came very close to separating. We did take a week apart to decide if we should stay together or not. We finally decided that we needed to keep the commitment we made to God and each other and work on making our marriage last. After all, we married because we loved each other, so there must have been something there worth keeping. The truth is that every marriage is hard work. That's because marriages are pairs of imperfect people who will hurt each other -- sometimes without even meaning to. Forgiveness is very important -- no matter how you might have been hurt -- unless there is a pattern of physical abuse or someone is an addict. Forgiveness is still important then for your own sake, but separation is, I believe, justified in that case. Most other problems can be solved with the help of a good counselor. Even addicts can get clean. I saw it happen in my extended family. Where there's a will, there's a way. It's unfortunate that the media has taught us that marriage should suddenly make us happy for the rest of our lives, and if it doesn't there's something wrong with the marriage. That's unrealistic, and there are very few fairytale marriages. I've never seen one. Marriages help us grow up and learn to be more unselfish, especially when children enter the picture.

AS it turned out, having the laptop along would have been useless. Instead of getting back to the motel early on Tuesday night as planned, we didn't get there until 11:30. I'll explain that in a new discussion later on. But I would not have had time to even turn the computer on, and I would have been one more thing to lug. I have posted all the pictures so far in previous discussions as I replied to them, so you can see them by going back to view the other discussions.

I actually had more fun on the hike Tuesday night -- something that wasn't even on our list -- than I did at the gardens. You can see several pictures of both in the responses I made to previous comments before you posted this.

Jen, I do not regret for a minute that I left it home. As things turned out, I would not have had any time to even plug it in. As it was we packed in so much activity we were sleep deprived when we got home and we were both fighting off colds. But it was worth it.

Debra, I appreciate the thought, but I seriously doubt if I will live to be 120!

WE did, indeed have a wonderful time. I hope you and your husband also have a very special anniversary celebration in July. Every marriage is special and has its own joys and challenges. Marriage is always a work in process. A wedding is only a beginning -- not a completed work.

As you can see from the pictures posted in my replies to the other response, we did pack a lot into our trip and had a great time. Now it's simply a matter of recuperating from the trip. We are almost back to normal now. I hope you and your husband will also make it to year 48 in your marriage. Work at it, and you will.

We did. but all that celebrating wore us out. I think we're finally back to normal today.

Thank you, taura. I hope you also get to celebrate a 48th wedding anniversary.

I have been posting pictures throughout this discussion. This one is of a rabbit I saw on our hike last night. Newbury Park is in the Conejo Valley in California, Ventura County. "Conejo" is Spanish for "rabbit." We were hiking around dusk, and rabbits seemed to be popping up everywhere. I got a video of one up close later on in our walk.

WE did have a great time seeing old friends, meeting new ones, hiking old trails we used to love, and visiting the Gardens of the World. I've been posting new pictures throughout this discussion. Here's one of Dragon's Gate Waterfall.

We used to live in Newbury Park, which is at the west end of Thousand Oaks. We actually went to the Reagan Library on our last anniversary trip, last year. I got some great pictures of the view from there, and even made some products on Zazzle from pictures I took there. One of my close friends is a docent there. I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Seven years is a great start to a lifetime of love. Love is a daily commitment that you live one day at a time and the years add up. Before you know it, you're looking back at 25, 30, 40, and maybe even 50 or more years of marriage. Congratulations to you for being on the way.

I seemed to have missed your comment the first time around. Staying married 48 years takes some doing, but if you persevere, we have found the last years have been better than the first ones.