My dad used to tell us four girls, “The first to get married gets the big wedding. The rest get $200 and a ladder.”

Well, twenty-three years ago my childhood sweetheart and I got married in a snowstorm in Vermont. Twenty-one years ago we had our first child, and didn’t stop having babies until the new millennium.  We built our house. We made home our school. We’ve been kinda busy.

In the past few years my sweetie and I have been getting away for our anniversary. It is that time again, and I am leaving it all behind in order to take it all up again, fresh and rested. Where does one go for the bargains this time of year? Not Vermont, for sure. We go to the Maine seacoast. Mmmmm, the Atlantic in February.

But when we come back it will be four days closer to spring.