25 Years of Marriage! The One Thing I’ve Learned

Happy 25th anniversary to Rebecca and I. Had a lot of time to think about it. If I've only learned one thing to tell my 22-year-old self, it would be, it's not about picking the right one, it's about becoming or being the right one. Let's unpack this as we celebrate our anniversary day. Place back. Sonom. It's gluten-free, baby. Look at this, gluten-free bread rolls. And it's semi-farmed at all. Yeah. Breakfast tea. What's next? What'd you order? I ordered a smash burger. Double smash burger. Butter on that? No. Nothing has progressed me more as a man than being married. You see, I have someone there 24-7, accountability. She sees the good, bad, and ugly. And when I listen, the suggested changes, the molding, the pointing out of things, I become a better person. Sometimes it may be hard to hear, but sometimes the truth is hard to hear. I forgot to film any of the rest of that lunch. I guess we were enjoying ourselves too much. Here's a picture, though. Okay you ready? This is kind of fun. We stop by the house before we go to the house. Kind of fun vacationing on our own farm. Stop getting him in your microphone. Nope. You're not allowed in the yard. Pretend an Airbnb guest is over there, okay? Okay? Can you grab me some drinks? Get in. Henry. Henry pretend we're out of town, okay? No coming to the cabin. You can go to the pond. Show the fun drinks. Is Stevia sweetened? Zero sugar soda, I don't know how good they are for me. It's not good enough for me at all. Stevia has no side effects. This is for you guys. It's so pink. Or is it this color? No, it's not great. It tastes good. That's why when we get a really good one, your mom and I eat it all. It tastes really good. We are stuffed. I can't even imagine what we're stuffing. So much. It's so good. So good. We got our little bag packed for our literal walk across the street. Getting to go park the Suburban. It was the second I thought you actually... My face was like... Lolly kicking Lolly. Besides that, there's something really special about having someone to experience things with. Fun things, exciting things, good things, bad things, death of our parent things, kids acting a fool, kids doing great, being proud of. Somebody to share in the morning and in the happiness. There's a lot of value in just having someone there, Even during the boring times, a companion, And that doesn't happen without heeding the other person, the husband, heeding the wife to improve upon himself. We don't wanna take the Suburban and park it and then walk over there. So we are literally gonna drive to Suburban. Our house, the Airbnb. Are you getting our drive? Yeah, I guess so. A long drive. Bye, see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Big trip. Okay, although Lily's present to us for our anniversary is to... She's going to be cooking a supper, and she's going to be bringing it over. So this is what people experience when they come to stay with us. And all the homesteaders, have you noticed? All our homestead friends, they're all outside. They get on the swing, they sit on the porch, and when normal Airbnb guests come, we never see them. They're outside. Go with the story, go with the story. She is the mouthpiece of God in your life. So when you're hearing a hard word, don't shoot the messenger. Sometimes I feel sorry for Rebecca because she has to get frustrated and deliver things to me, God's voice to me. And I'm like, why does it have to be this? I feel sorry because you had to be stressed to get this message across to me. She's the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger. We forgot beach towels. Gideon, get us some beach towels. It's our style, right? If we live on a farm, we love a farm, Why not stay on a farm when we go on vacation? Look at this room service. So sweet. Happy anniversary, we love you. Room service will be here at five. Okay, give a tour of the place. Look at this. Here's my impression we would die to go to an Airbnb and have that stuff I know stainless, stainless, wooden lots of it. Doesn't smell like any fragrance, it's zero smell in here. Fragrance in the area, organic teas Are you kidding? Free organic teas. Look, what's in here? All the information for info or uh Wait, where's our dressings? I thought we gave dressings. We did give salad dressings. We haven't brought them over yet. Oh, okay. I bought them. Oh, oh! We do do organic ketchup and mustard. I meant one of the other things I was going to buy at Whole Foods was coffee. So we're out of coffee here. Ah, put it on the list. Oh, you've got to get that dishwasher replaced, too. That's on the list to do this week. Okay. Roll the tour. Don't mind the trash. It's getting flipped right now. Let me show you what all our homestead friends... You come here, dude. The parents are always there. I was thinking about that today. Man, if this house looked like it does right now when we lived here. We wouldn't have hurried up. We probably would not be done with that house. Which would be okay. We would have saved a lot of money. I just really, I remember just really enjoying this porch. Look at this view. We lived on this porch. POV. Every time I looked over here, I saw, I see him on the porch. The porch is the best thing about it. The inside is nice. Well, my thought would be, now it is, was to make an addition off of this side That would be a living room. And then this, the living room in here would become a dining room. And then we would have had more room for bedrooms and bathrooms. Just sunbathe. There's something very special about taking a break and doing nothing right in the middle of the day. Look at this. Billy, bring us Our dinner, girl, do we have steak knives over here? Dinner was great, we binge watched Landman, still went to bed like nine o'clock, like a bunch of old people. But if I could go back to my 22 year old self, as my children near the age of marriage, I hear the advice, oh, the wisest thing you can do is pick your mate, okay. Or the wisest thing you can do is listen to your mate and become someone worth . So if I can go back to my 22-year-old self where I could give Jonah some advice, it's really not about picking the right one. It is about becoming the right one. So you don't want this frictionless thing. I mean, you don't want to get into, don't get me wrong, you don't want to get into somebody with, you know, totally different ethos and values and things like that. Let's get some of the foundations. But then the little nitpicky, the little individual stuff that eat people. Peas one at a time stuff. I was giving dinner the other night and she's got the strangest habit. She eats her peas one at a time. Beyond the foundational moral issues. I'm excited for my boys not because of the happiness, but because of the trials, because of the sharpening of them that their spouses will bring. And there's nothing like marriage, I've found, to help you become... A better person. If you'll just listen and be willing to be pruned, to be sharpened. These things are uncomfortable. These are the things I've learned. Let's go home and wrap up this vlog. How do you rate it, Rebecca? 25 years. In the books? You're remembering it? Oh, yeah. This is really nice. Our experience. I actually slept in this morning until 8.15, which was so nice. 8.15. I can't tell you the last time I've slept in until 8.15. And going to bed last night, it was almost weird going to bed without having to help me. Like, I had to read. The last 18 years of our marriage has helped people go to bed. To, like, wind down. Because I was like, this is, I'm like. And now we didn't have to help people wake up either. No, I know. So, it was really nice. And, like, this is. What is to come when our kids are grown, which is nice. But how was the Airbnb stay? What are you going to give these owners? How much are the items? I would give them a five star. Oh, yeah. Five and a half. Just because they've tried really hard, I can tell. But there are some things that I need to fix. Well, one, the salt shaker was out of salt, so I have a refill here. So I just refilled that, but I need to add that to my list of things I check. Yeah. The blankets are too warm. Yeah, the blanket's just too thick. It'd be great for winter because it's so warm, but it's a little too warm for summer. So I need to buy lighter summer quilts to just put on the beds for right now, and we'll put the big thick blankets just in the closet so if people want a thick blanket, they can. And the blackout curtains in the master bedroom, I need to figure something out with that. She's talking about the blackout curtains. They don't quite collapse on each other. They're a little too narrow, see? If you guys want a little vacay in beautiful Western North Carolina, look at this, or you wanna come experience the farm, I'm gonna leave the link down in the description for that. Hey! Yay! Look at your face. Smoothie? No. Chocolate ice cream. I got the ice cream. This morning? No, last night. This morning? You got chocolate ice cream. Hey! Good morning, Papa. Good morning. Mwah, I love you. I missed you. I missed you too.