Sunday, February 14, 2010

Forever and a Day

I have a whole box of baby pictures of JB, somewhere. His Mom gave them to me, and I put them somewhere for safe-keeping. A bit too safe. I can't find them! Anyways, hopefully my clean-sweeping project will help them reemerge. But, in the meantime, I did find this one picture of JB that his sister Katie cleaned up and scanned for his Mom a few months ago.

Rumor has it, Elijah looks like him. I just don't see it. ;)

Anyways, I was blessed to talk John into falling in love with me way back in December of 1993 when we went on our first date. (If you are new to the blog and want to read a summary of our life together, click here.)

Okay, so he didn't fall in love with me. Probably not until 1994 at least. It's been more than sixteen years since I fell in love with him though. Two break-ups. A year and a half long distance when I was in college. Living on just over $15,000 a year during our first year of marriage. Five homes. Four vehicles. Too many too cold winters. Five years together in Kentucky. Four years in Minnesota. Back to Florida for three more.

Along the way we dealt with five years of infertility and grew closer amidst the deepest pain I have ever known. Now we have two boys that were only images in my dreams. (And a dog that I dream about not having sometimes when he wakes me up at 5am to go potty like he did this morning.)

During that five years of infertility, things got hard. While we remained best friends and determined to come out on the other side together, I think we both wondered at times if things would ever get back to how they used to be. When love and laughter flowed so easily. When we stressed little and hugged a lot.

We are back there now. I am more in love with my husband right now than I ever have been.

Thanks for being my Valentine John Mark. This is our sixteenth Valentine's Day with each other. I'll love you forever and a day.

2 comments:

Carrie said...

Next time, put the coupon(s) with your money/credit card/checkbook, that way when you go to pay it will be staring you in the face!

Of course, cashiers should automatically ask if you have any coupons... I've noticed most don't any more.

You could always send JB to the store for something and just go ahead and buy another pack of the diapers, since you know you are going to use them at some point!

Joanna said...

I can totally see Elijah in this pic of JB! Totally. That was my first thought, in fact, even before you mentioned it. :)