Noah, Annie, Ariel and Carla Gill pick apples together, cook dinner together, feed the dog and are competitive at Scrabble. 

“We are just the same as any other family,” Carla Gill said. 

Carla and her partner, Ariel Gill, have celebrated 19 anniversaries, bought a house in Auburn, raised two children and now are allowed to get married. 

“It’s time to get married after 20 years,” Ariel Gill said. “We just had the house and the children first.” 

The Gill family have the people of Maine to thank. Maine and Maryland became the first states to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote on Nov. 6. 

“I never thought in my lifetime that I would be here to see this happen,” Carla Gill said. “I gave up on the idea of being married, even if I felt married.” 

Carla and Ariel watched as Question 1 results trickled in on Election Day. 

“We weren’t holding our breath, but Ariel and I believe that everything happens in due time,” Carla said. 

The opponents of same-sex marriage did not accept defeat until 1:30 a.m. the next day, far past the Gill family’s bedtime. 

Carla could not sleep and checked results in the middle of the night. 

“I felt such a sigh of relief,” Carla said about how she felt when she saw that Question 1 had passed 53 percent to 47 percent. “I thought same-sex marriage was never going to happen during my lifetime until now.”

Carla woke the rest of the family at 4:30 a.m. to spread the good news. “I wanted to be the first one to tell them. I did not want them to learn about it on Facebook or on their phones.”

“When she woke me up, the sensation of energy came through me because I was so excited,” 11-year-old Noah said. 

“It’s very exciting for us, maybe more so for us than some of the younger couples, because when we were first dating being gay was not accepted anywhere. You snuck around in the dark, and you didn’t let your neighbors know,” Ariel said. “Things have changed so much.”

The Gill family did not post pre-election signs in their yard. They support the organizations that go to bat, but “we have never been very politicized,”  Ariel said.

“We use to be bumper-sticker queens before kids, but have now cleaned up our act,” Carla said. 

Ariel and Carla decided about a month ago to get married if Question 1 passed.

“She said yes and I said yes,” Carla said. “We sat and talked with the kids and they said ‘of course, you have to,'” she said. 

The couple plan to marry at the ocean in June, one month after their 20th anniversary of being together. 

“We know we can’t afford a honeymoon because we had the kids first,” Carla said with a laugh. Annie and Noah are pushing for a “family honeymoon.”

“That’s how we raised them,” Carla said. “It’s not about us as a couple. It’s about us as a family.”

 “I have seen my friends open their minds because of my family,” said Annie, a 16-year-old senior at Edward Little High School. “When people look at me, they don’t know that I have two moms, because we are just the same as any other family.”

“We are just a family living our lives, paying our bills, crying our tears and sharing our laughter,” Carla said. “We live our life, and we have the same highs and lows and joys and sorrows as anybody else.”

“We don’t identify ourselves as a gay family,” Carla said. “We live without labels … other than the label of ‘family.'”