Our Anniversary

Yesterday was our 7 year anniversary. It is so hard to believe that we have been married for seven years. What's more unbelieveable is that we have really been together for 14 years. The time has flown by. And in all these years God has blessed us abundantly. Our cups really do runneth over. We have two beutiful girls that are our world. We have a roof over our heads, food to eat, jobs that support the family, clothes to wear, and an awsome network of family and friends. The good and the bad, I could not imagine my life any other way. Although we often fall victim to the tiredness and chaos that has become our lives, we still love each other. I can still look at him and remember back to the boy (we were in high school at the time) I fell in love with. The boy that convinced his family to take their family vacation to PC b/c that is where I was visiting my mom. The boy that copied down poems for me to read. The boy that attended every softball game I played except for when he was playing a game himself. The boy that became active in my church and later joined and is now an elder. Sometimes all these and other memories get lost in the stress of day to day living, but then he goes and does something great again reminds me that God did make him just for me. Like last night we went to Olive Garden for our anniversary. We had a great meal and had a great conversation. There are several ways to get home from Prattville and so we were discussing which way was the best. He wanted to go one way and I wanted to go another and since I was driving, I chose. Well as we are going down the road we see two women trying to change a tire. I told Joe we should offer to help. He offered and they accepted. Joe got out there in his nice jeans (we only have one pair of nice jeans each), a nice shirt, and his church shoes and started to work. They didn't have the parking brake on and when he started working on it the car started to roll and the rim dug into the concrete which of course meant more work for Joe, but he did it all and got them fixed up within 5-10 minutes. He is also so great with the girls. He has always helped with bath time and changing diapers. I have heard of so many man that refused to change diapers or give baths especially when it was daughters, but Joe has always helped. Joe is a great guy that would help anyone in need. Now by all means I'm not saying the man is perfect, he has his faults just as I do. And I'm not telling you that we have this perfect marriage, because we don't. We fight, we fight alot. We have worked very hard to make our marriage work. But at the end of the day there is no one else in the world I would rather fight with. His job has always been a huge stressor and fighting point because he is not at home as much as a lot of other husbands and dads. He often works 10-12 hours days and for as long as we have been married has worked every other weekend which means we get four whole days out of the entire month. This is hard and puts a lot more on me, but this has become our normal. Hopefully one day soon he will find a job that has normal hours and that does not require weekends, but until then we keep doing what we are doing.

I know to some people seven years is not that much and to others it is a great accomplishment, us, we just feel blessed. Every day is a new day to begin again and live in the moment: to tell each other we love them, to try to do God's work in all that we do, and to raise our girls in a good Christian home showered with love and affection.