Wedding Anniversary

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. Yes, it is rarely celebrated with fanfare. Years ago we might have spent a night at a hotel or maybe dined at a fancy restaurant, but today I clipped the boys hair, had a birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese in the afternoon and 2 baseball games in the evening. And yet these ordinary events it didn't take anything away from the special place the date of April 26 holds in my heart. It's a day when no matter what I am doing, or where I am located I feel joy and contentment having Rich by my side and knowing that it is the beginning of another year I can spend married to my sweetheart. Today marks our 11th wedding anniversary. What a happy, long awaited day that was back in 1997. When we became engaged in September of 1996, the thought of nine long months until we could be sealed seemed like an eternity. Now I'm looking back on this day eleven years later with 5 little ones of my own and 1,500 miles from where we started. What a joy this journey has been. Life has surprised me in so many ways. I guess I should always just expect the unexpected because that if often what I have found a long this path of life. I found my best friend on May 10, 1996 when I was just 19 years old and not looking to find true love. I welcomed my first baby in September 1999 and while my parents were close to enjoy him, Rich's parents and younger brother were thousands of miles away serving as mission president in Brazil. Medical school brought a huge change. A year after we welcomed Trey to our family, we were packing up our things and headed east to Louisville, Kentucky where we spent not four years, but nearly six when we moved out early so I could teach school and later matched for Rich's intern year at U of L. While in Louisville, I learned how to be independent and ready to face the challenges medical school would bring. We welcomed not one baby boy in June 2001, but two. I often said I got a bonus baby- two for the price of one and in just eight months. Hard to beat a deal like that. I found the best girlfriends anyone could wish for. They are the sisters I never had and were there whenever I needed them. Then in March 2005 we finally added some pink into the mix times two. Who could be so lucky to have twins twice. I compared the odds to winning the lottery because that's how it felt. My very own baby girls and best friends in the making. Next it was off to Lexington for four years. New friendships have been made, while we still find time to visit loved ones in Louisville. Two years from now we will move again for a year fellowship, so the adventure continues. As the years pass away, I simply look back with fond memories. There were great times and hard times and certainly ones I would never want to relive and yet those difficult ones helped shape me into who I am today. Hopefully that is a woman who has more patience and has more knowledge and a deeper love for my spouse and family than when I was a new bride at the beginning of my married life. I know that life will continue to change us and mold us and help us grow. There will be ups and downs and times where you feel like you are barely moving forward. Change is a constant companion and yet that doesn't make me worry because through it all I have a rock by my side. I have a person who knows my soul, who is willing to take the good and bad and love me more and more each day. I wish everyone were so lucky to find someone who completes you, who teaches you by example, who speaks kinds words of others, who leads our home with love and honors his priesthood. Someone who encourages and helps me become the best person I am capable of. That is true love pure and simple.

Thanks for eleven wonderful years Rich. It's been more than I could have imagined. You bring magic to my life everyday. How blessed I am. I love you!
My extended familyRich's extended family
So many wonderful, dear friends that feel like family
Our parents
Our families (minus my older brother Greg who was serving a mission in Argentina).