Take the bad and get the good

In a week, if I don't figure out how to stop it, I will become middle aged. Though this is something that I am desperately dreading,I am not dreading the fact that July holds my twentieth wedding Anniversary. Yes I know old is old but somehow it is different. Since last year Mike has been trying to soften my inevitable 40th birthday. We even looked at going on a cruise for the occasion. Unfortunately, the kids have school and since it is so close to Valentine's day and a four day school weekend, prices of the cruise were over double what I knew I could get at another time not to mention that the flights to the port ( Did anyone know that Carnival, Disney, and other major cruise lines don't even have a port in Ohio ? How discriminatory !) are twice the price of the cruise that week. Anyway, this was vetoed as paying thousands of dollars for a few days even if I was hiding from Father Time is just not justifiable to our lower middle class family.
The next idea was to take a local trip to the woods and rent a cabin for the long weekend where we could have family time which is almost nonexistent with two teenagers( one who works full time while attending nursing school) and a preteen. Unfortunately this with it's $100 per night price tag ( plus doggy boarding)was vetoed when Cindy's job really didn't want her to take off four days in a row added to the fact that spending almost a thousand on a weekend again is not really in budget just to hide out. So the trip option was out. I guess that I will just have to sleep through the day , after all, it doesn't count if I don't experience it, right ?
A week ago though Mike and I started discussing this years vacation plans. He told me that since we are reaching two major milestones this year that we should celebrate with a vacation . Where did I want to go he asked ? Well..... I have never been outside the US and a cruise has always been my fantasy vacation...... We first discussed whether the kids were old enough to make this a childless vacation or not. Yes they are old enough but wouldn't it be fun to take the whole family ? Well as God would allow, Cindy has a break in nursing school in August just before the boys go back to school in September and there was one wonderful deal for a four day Bahama's cruise right in the middle of all of this, so......... Mike and I booked it ! We still have to get a flight to and from but the cruise is booked. I am amazed, it is a dream come true ! I remember when we were planning our wedding twenty years ago. I had a coworker also planning her wedding who was telling me how her family was giving her and her fiance a cruise for their wedding gift. Wow, I imagined... I will probably never be able to afford a cruise.So Anyway maybe turning 40 isn't so bad and being married twenty years has brought me three wonderful ( in training )children, and what the heck.... yes there is bad in life and yes Mike and I( and our children) have had and continue to have our share. But this proves that there is good too.And to give up the good to get rid of the bad really isn't an option for us .