Working Mom Blues and The Case of the mushy, sweetest, best ever anniversary gift

I love showing up for work looking like somebody scraped me up off the beach. I never feel like I'm "missing out" when I've been out having fun with my family in the sun and water. I don't care if I didn't get enough sleep or that I washed my hair in the lake and conditioned it with a handful of body lotion that I happened to have along with me at the time. When I come in after a fun day at the lake, I'm at my finest.
This is where our story ends, or maybe where it begins. Yes, I drug myself away from the lake (kicking and screaming inside) to come to work. We had gone on our 2nd "Pud Camping Trip" of the summer. We decided to visit "Lake Cow-a-fishy-bee". Oh it was so much fun! The lake was loaded with perch, mammoth bass and little "pumpkin seed" sunnies swimming all over. My husband started out snorkeling, but wasn't in for long before he headed for his fish pole with wide eyes and a big grin. The kids had such a fun time fishing too. When I "experience" a lake, I want to do lots of things : Swim it, hike around it, kayak it, lounge next to it, maybe even fish and the list goes on. I could hardly get it all in, though I put in a valiant attempt.
It happened to be our 18th wedding anniversary the day we arrived there. I had been through an array of emotions that morning already. My husband had worked for weeks on a "surprise". Let me take you back a few days. It started out where I discovered him in the basement "doing something" he wouldn't let me see. My over active imagination played out many crazy scenarios. It ended in me kicking and fussing while he picked me up and removed me from the basement. After my hysterical behavior, he confessed to be working on something for our anniversary. Try as I might, he would not divulge the secret. I could hardly bare all the secrecy. Soon Sock Fashion Expert was in on it. Every time I left the room, I could hear whispering.
Finally on the big day, my husband woke me up rubbing my back. He told me he had something special. We sat on the bed together as he turned on the DVD player. The song "You Are So Beautiful To Me" played while pictures of our life together flashed on the screen. Wedding pictures, teenage photos of us together, family photos, years gone by. The main theme of the pictures was me. I was shocked. Some of the photos of me were horrible (in my opinion), but the song just kept on playing. It finally dawned on me that I really am beautiful to him. Even through the years that I was the heaviest, the song just kept on playing. Oh it was definitely the sweetest thing my husband has ever done! It made me feel very secure and loved and not quite so traumatized about the appearance of white in my hair. The full force of seeing us together all those years hit me and I couldn't quit blubbering. What an investment of time. I could do nothing else but pledge the rest of my life to him and lose myself in the wonder of the ecstasy in a life together well lived.