Crazy in LOVE...Wedding, Vacation, Schedules and 8 Years!

Over the past few weeks, we have been busy.

The last weekend of April brought with it the wonderful wedding of Kade and MM.  Kade is of course one of our "people"....as in, one of our most important people in our little lives.  This means that MM has also become one of those people...especially now that it is official. The wedding was great!  We enjoyed our weekend catching up with friends who we don't often see.  It's hard when we stretch from Kansas to North Carolina to South Carolina to Georgia!  Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Ross!  We look forward to all that life will bring you...especially when it involves good memories, great sports and fabulous trips with friends.

We barely had time to get home before we loaded up (nearly all of) our belongings and headed south...way down south to the happiest place on earth.  Disney!!  I have many, many separate post coming up for Disney.  It was magical.  Disney with kids is something that you just can't quite capture in words.  Sure, it is expensive and takes a little creative budgeting and it is exhausting and at times gets a little stressful...but, it is worth every minute of it in the end.  The magic on your child's face is something that you rarely get a chance to see.  We had a WONDERFUL week.  On top of that, it was one of our first family vacations...with just the four of us...there will be many more in the future but it was so nice to get away from all the chaos of our real world and just enjoy each other for a full week.  Loved it!

We returned home...and returned to the chaos that awaited us very quickly.

The past 10 days have been packed and this week is no different.

The one difference of this week is that it holds a very special day....no, not my cousin's birthday....our Anniversary.  EIGHT years have passed since that special day that we said I Do.  I had no idea where life would lead us on that day eight years ago....if I had filled out a questionnaire on that day, I have a feeling many of my answers would have been incorrect today.

On this day eight years ago, the world stopped spinning briefly and revolved just around the two of us and our beautiful wedding and reception....right?  Maybe it didn't stop spinning, but it definitely tilted a little towards my hometown....maybe that was because the flowers weighed so much that it threw off the earth's balance a little :).


Eight years ago, this was our wedding day....and that was all that mattered.

Eight years later, this day includes a mom and dad of two, heading off to work, the 2nd to last day of school for our kids, an off campus end of year party for our 2 year old, a baby sitter who will have to take him to his party because we are at work, my 24 week doctor's appointment to check on baby # 3 and a second babysitter to watch the kids so that Chad can go with me to the appointment, a rushed trip home from the doctor so that "Coach Chad" can get Payton ready and head out to Payton's first "summer" league t-ball practice and Chad's first official coaching-his-own-kid job, Chad skipping a Deacon meeting at church to coach t-ball, Jess and Owen heading to church, so that another group of sitters can watch Owen while Jess lead's a women's Bible study group and if we are lucky, a family dinner, consisting most likely of deli sandwiches, chips and fruit around 8:15.   No date night or fairy tale ending this year...the money that we might have spent on dinner will be gone before we even eat thanks to the two separate sitters we will pay to help with our kids so we can rush through our days.  Just another day...no, not really....even in the rush of the day, I am a lucky nurse who will write the date 100 times...and each time I write this date 5/21, I will be reminded of the day and the moment that I said "I do!"

I am a lucky, lucky girl to have ended up living this life beside this amazing man.  I probably did not know what life would look like 8 years down the road, but I am certain that whatever I would have thought would not have been as perfect as the life that has developed.  Eight years, 2 boys and one on the way, a wonderful town 10 minutes from the beach, too many friends to list, a fabulous church home that helps us grow each week and a supportive family that we couldn't live with out.  Not so bad!

Happy Eight Years to my favorite guy!

Honeymoon in Aruba, Dinner at the Flying Fishbone....one of my favorite spots on this earth!

This is what 8 years looks like!  I would not trade it for the world!