10 years

10 years. A decade. Wow. There were lots of things I imagined I'd do on this anniversary. One of which was renew our vows. Thing is, it seems like yesterday that we said them. I'm a little scared at how fast my life really will go by. If this is 10 years, and I'm only probably going to get about 6 more sets of those... better try to capture every moment of them.
Joe and I won a night at the Gaylord Texan last spring. It was really nice to get away for a little while. I am still nursing Levi, so it was pretty brief. We had a nice Italian dinner, hung out at a restaurant on Lake Grapevine while the sun set, found some yummy dessert to take back to the room, wandered the grounds of the atrium, (edit) and ended with some great Alias-watching/dessert eating! Joe would have been happy to skip the late-night mad dash to the Sundry store (before closing) to grab me some contact solution, but that's what great hubby's do, without complaint.
10 years: Our $6 apartment, Joe being a meter reader in Arkansas, moving to Birmingham without jobs knowing only 2 people, our wonderful church at Hoover, buying our 1st car (2001 Ford Focus), working at AmSouth bank together, joining the USAF, moving to Pensacola, watching him fly USAF trainers, Blue Angels practicing over our house every week, moving to CA, trips to somewhere cool every weekend in CA, Monterrey Beach, Pebble Beach, moving to North Dakota, blizzards, your new "Eskimo" look in your gov't issed parka, plugging in our cars, grilling outdoors in the snow... in April, calling you in the missile launch facility (just because I could), working with the teens in Minot, trips to Canada, driving 8 hours to buy a car in Minneapolis, having Caleb so early/so scary, living with mom and dad and Papaw, finding our amazing church/friends at NYA, buying our first house, having Levi without the scary, discovering a new career field and trying to get into Occupational Therapy school... all of it... priceless.
I am so blessed to have found a man with so many wonderful qualities. Sure, we are in a rough spot right now with career transitioning, but we were never promised things would always be peachy. I distinctly remember the part about "For better or for worse", and what's funny is, even though these last couple years could be called "worse" we've had lots of the "better". I love you Joe. Thanks for 10 amazing years, and here's to many more... Love you, Kelly

From March 2011

P.S. Sign that maybe we are watching a little too much Alias: we saw someone left a purse on a trash can at night as we were walking around the grounds. I told Joe I should take it to the front, and he said, "What? There could be a bomb in there!" I laughed at him, but I sure didn't go get it.. just let the desk people know where it was... because, what if?!?!