Wow! Five Amazing Years!!

Today I celebrate my anniversary!!!
It has been five rather fun and eventful years since Steven and I got married.  I will forever be grateful that Lorena encouraged me to ask the Bishop if there were funds in the “Single’s Budget” to help me go to the single’s Conference. (Did you even know that there was such a thing??) If I had not asked, I would not have gone to the conference and it would have been another couple months before I even met Steven and I may not have gotten to know him, because we are both shy.  And I was very unsure about being in any relationship anyway after my pain filled marriage and long drawn out divorce the year before. 
Oh, the baggage that each person brings into any relationship…hmmmmm.  In my "monogrammed luggage" you would find quite a bit of anger at my former husband over the broken bones, broken promises and broken dreams for our marriage. Not to mention the experiences and relationships I had had from my family of origin and the boys I had dated in high school and after…each experience shaping me to be who I am.  Then there was Steven’s “totes” of past experiences. His family of origin, his mission, his wife Kim spending their entire marriage fighting kidney failure, kidney transplant and then succumbing to the effects of the disease. My heart breaks for him each time I think of it.  So we came together and are helping each other open the trunks and clean out the junk and save the precious memories and put them neatly back into the smaller, neater, happier box we call our life.
Here are some pictures to commemorate the day:


 One of our first dates. We went to a fall festival with his parents on a double date!! Fun!  We even danced while no one else was…crazy but fun.  He has added so much fun and adventure to my life!







 


We went down to Findlay to my Mom’s to celebrate her birthday and mine (they are a week apart.)  I think Sariah took this picture…this was back before I used digital.  I thought it was funny, so put it here.








 This photo was taken at my Mother’s down in Cherry Log, GA.  We drove down for Thanksgiving 2004.  Steven is wearing the hat I bought him at Cracker Barrel on the way down.  His “engagement hat”…He proposed the day after Thanksgiving as we were packing to come home.  Very sweet and I of course cried and said yes!! How could I resist such a hunk? I have always had a weakness for blue eyes, great smiles and muscles…he’s a keeper.








We were married January 21, 2005 by Bishop Dickerson in the Howell Relief Society Room.  We had decided to wait to go to the Temple as my sealing needed top be canceled first.
What a wonderful day that was!  We had 2 sweet flower/ring girls.
















Tallen arrived April 20, 2006 to make our family complete. Steven was so excited to have gotten two daughters through marrying me and now he had his very own boy, too! Bliss!





We went to the Detroit Temple in 2007 to seal and link our family for the Eternities.  The pictures are all blurry and there were other “blips” in the day but the ordinances are the same and we are striving daily to live as the Forever Family we long to be.

Thank you Steven for the past five wonderful years.  Have I mentioned how thankful I am that God thought fit to bring us together to share this mortal experience as friends and partners?  I have enjoyed the last five years and look forward to growing with you during the next five years and beyond. (The children will be almost gone by then…then the fun really begins!)

**As a side note, let me tell you what this sweet man got me as an anniversary gift.  I have coveted my friends’ Kitchen Aid “VERY fancy” stand mixers for as long as he has known me. So the other night, as we were walking through the store grabbing milk and eggs (so mundane a task) I saw a Sunbeam mixer on sale.  He grabbed it and put it in the cart for me!!  Woo-Hoo!!

I rushed home and made a space of honor on the counter for her to live!  I woke the next morning and made pancakes with it and then oatmeal-raisin cookies to thank Steven for my goodie.