NFA for Fire Wives? I Wish!

After several weeks of checking our mailbox every day for the letter from the National Fire Academy (NFA) it finally arrived. Yup, it’s here alright. In fact, it says that since my husband had such a great time there last year, he can spend the week of our anniversary at the NFA again this year too! Well, maybe that’s not the exact wording, but that’s how I read it anyways. You see, our anniversary falls just after a major holiday; one of my favorites by the way. In order to attend the NFA the next week, the holiday gets cut short. Travel plans don’t exist. The kids don’t get to see him while on school break. And to top it all off, he spent our anniversary last year honoring the fallen at Gettysburg and eating at a steak house with “the guys.” I, on the other hand, raced through a blurry day of endless demands and ate a gourmet dinner of scraps off my kids’ plates while cleaning up the kitchen and before falling into our empty bed, exhausted. Despite the timing, I’m actually glad that he got into the class he most wanted. I joke with him, but wishing I could experience all those things too, is actually the worst part. Luck is never on our side when it comes to anniversary celebrations anyways, but just once, I want to take a trip for our anniversary. If it’s not a trip with him, then I would settle for an NFA Fire Wives class. I could handle just being in charge of myself for a week. He would take care of the house and kids just fine. I’d love to go to a steak house with a bunch of fire wives who know what it’s like to live this life. I would be okay with "learning" something like our firemen do, sightseeing, and making cross-country friends. But, that probably won’t happen because the NFA has yet to host a Wives Week. I’d be there in a heartbeat if they did though! Since that’s a distant dream, maybe some of my local ladies will go out with me on my anniversary instead and my husband and I can catch up later. I’d be happy to spend an evening with my lovely fire wife friends, celebrating the past 13 years of marriage to a man who can’t attend the celebration once again. I’d laugh and raise a glass to that. After all, you don’t make 13 years by sweating the small stuff. Besides that, it beats table scraps for two years running.