The Honeymoon

My wife and I arrived at Willis Graves Bed & Breakfast by 8 PM. We checked into our room and, feeling quite famished, headed out for dinner. Our first meal as a married couple was at the President’s Inn, a restored 1840s tavern inn. We had fried green tomatoes as an appetizer and shared Maryland crab cakes and rabbit and potato stew topped with a sunny side egg.

Our honeymoon suite was fantastic. It was a restored log cabin from the 1850s, and though everything was fashioned in colonial décor, the best part was the bathroom: a gigantic tub with air jets and a steam shower. Our first sensual act as a married couple was taking a bath (how romantic), and we ended the night curled up in bed looking through wedding pictures. I wrote her a letter that brought tears to her eyes:

Letter Transcript A

“You never told me about what happened in 2006,” she said. “I promised myself that I would only tell my wife,” I said. Tears came into her eyes as she read through the rest of the letter.

Letter Transcript B

She liked the P.S., and she thought it was a good idea. So we consummated this whole thing.

In the morning we had breakfast at the main house and headed out to Gunpowder Creek Park to do some hiking and exploring. We burned a TON of calories (we didn’t know it was mostly hills), and then we headed back to the suite to take another bath and a nap with a fire roaring in the hearth. We woke and picked up a Greek pizza from President’s Inn and devoured it while watching Red Dragon; now we want to see Hannibal and Silence of the Lambs. Anthony Hopkins is a great actor. We broke out creamed bourbon and root beer and got mildly drunk before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

We checked out of the suite at 11 AM and made it to Tousey House Tavern in time to enjoy brunch. She had eggs benedict and I had a fried chicken club paired with fries. We grabbed coffee at a gas station and headed down to Lexington to pick up the girls, who spent the weekend with Ashley’s parents. Her dad (my new father-in-law) made meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, and her mom broke out old family albums of Ashley in high school. She was adorable and definitely the better looking of the two of us. We loaded the girls into the van, and it was dark by the time we got back to Kennesaw. After we got the girls in bed, we enjoyed the last of the creamed bourbon and caught up with Keith and Rachel. We headed to bed and fell asleep for the first time in our bed, as Husband and Wife. Neither of us could be happier!

I waited and waited and waited for GOD. At last he looked; finally he listened. He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock, to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God. [Psalm 40.1-5, The Message]

In 2005 I wrote on this blog, “I imagine God is shaking His head and smiling, perhaps thinking, ‘He has no idea what I have planned for him!’” Now I have an idea, and it was more than I could ever have imagined. Not only did He have a beautiful and loving wife for me, but He also had a family for me. Not just Ashley but also two beautiful step-daughters to call my own.