20 Years of Building

Our room was on the second floor, 
behind the deck towards the right.

Tina and I wanted to go on a short get-away for our 20th Anniversary.  We narrowed the location down to the St. Michaels, MD area, but couldn't decide on a bed and breakfast.  Finally, the day before we were to leave, Tina called the one place that stuck out, The Oaks Waterfront Inn in Royal Oak, MD, just a few miles before St. Michaels.

She spoke to Joanna and told her what we had planned, who informed her that yes, they had plenty of space, and would reserve two nights in a moderately priced room.  When we arrived the day before our anniversary, we discovered that Joanna had upgraded our room to literally the best accommodations in the Inn.  It was a huge second floor room, the only one with it's own balcony overlooking the cove.  It was an upgrade of about $90 per night.

View of the sunrise from our deck.

The Oaks specializes in events.  As we sat at breakfast, we talked about having our girl's weddings there.  Perfect if you are having a lot of out of town guests.  Of course, it was only talk.

We took walks, swam in The Oaks pool, explored the cove in a canoe before breakfast, and rode bikes to the one intersection in Royal Oak.

Just like the rest of the world, I make decisions all day long - decisions about which job I need to go to in my work, decisions about what to do on that particular job, decisions about our family, decisions about how to spend the limited amount of time I have.  Tina is faced with her own set of decisions to make.  And we make those decisions in the midst of the noise that a big family makes.  So our anniversary was exactly what we needed.  We intentionally limited the decision making, enjoying the quiet environment and the quieting of our minds.  Quiet is hard to come by at home.  Everyone knows that.

I tend to focus on buildings and architecture wherever we go.  I look at what other people build. This affection for old buildings even had a role in our decision to dine at 208 Talbot on the evening of our anniversary.  And as we strolled through St. Michaels, I thought of what Tina and I had built over the past 20 years.

We have a plaque on our wall with the words of a song by Reverend Dan Smith.  The song in entitled "It Takes God to Build a Home".  It hangs at the end of our hallway, and reminds us that as much as we may be tempted to take the credit for the building in our lives, we believe that there is One higher than us Who quietly does the real work of building.  We are just privileged to participate.  And we were reminded on our anniversary that we busy ourselves with making plans, and then He gives us what we really need.

We have four children, and as much noise as they make, we wouldn't have built our family any differently if we had it to do over again.  And as much as we enjoyed the quiet, we gladly live in the midst of the mild hubbub our family makes.

Docks in St. Michaels