yesterday marked the 7th anniversary of our wedding day! we spent our anniversary weekend painting, painting, painting! we are moving wednesday, and it is just a busy time!! but we will take some time to ourselves very soon. i am so thankful for brian and his never-ending patience with me. :) we've had a wonderful 7 years, and i look forward to many more together with my love.
our anniversary night away was just what we needed in the midst of these busy days. things are still busy, so this will have to be short and sweet. (which is a great way to describe our getaway!)
we had a great time doing pretty much nothing. we enjoyed the quiet.
and i got to take naps. i was really bummed when i woke up on my own at 7:30 on saturday morning, but i happily went right back to sleep.
we ordered pizza and watched movies. neither of the movies were that great, but i think they were the most enjoyable mediocre movies i've watched in a long time.
we never tired of our beautiful view. we contemplated eating our muffins out on the porch saturday morning, but the absence of a breeze and the presence of mosquitoes and humidity sent us back indoors.
i really just couldn't get enough of the trees. a canopy of oaks is hard to top in my book.
and here we are, five years later and five years stronger. we are so grateful to our gracious friends who gave us the keys to their beautiful beach house for the night. thanks, jay and tammy!
i love my husband. i am thankful for the blessing of marriage and the daily reminders that this union brings. i am reminded of Christ's love for His church. i am reminded of the abundant gift of God's grace. i am reminded that my life is not my own. i am reminded that i am in need of a Savior. and i am reminded of the wonderful power of forgiveness. praise the Lord for these five years, and i pray that the next five (and the next five, and the next five, etc) will be to His Glory.
august 28, 2004...
august 28, 2008...
God is so good!
and here's a cute picture of the cousins from the cookout last night.
don't ya just wanna eat 'em up?! (the mosquitos did!)
today is our 4th wedding anniversary. :) it's been fun to think back throughout the day today about what i was doing this time 4 years ago... waking up to my WEDDING DAY, taking care of last minute preparations, fixing my hair & putting on my wedding dress, smiling at brian and saying our wedding vows, eating delicious wedding cake, driving to amelia island, etc. etc. 
and 4 years ago tomorrow, i laid in bed looking out the window at the beautiful atlantic ocean, eating breakfast in bed with my new husband as we watched the 2004 republican national convention. :) i had to giggle. we were married. i didn't care what we watched. :)
and i just pointed out to brian that here we are, 4 years later, watching the democratic national convention. oh the romance. :) just kidding. (and brian wants me to make sure you all know that we are NOT voting for the democratic candidate that is speaking right now. i can't think of one positive thing about that man except that his daughters are cute. but i'm sure he'd say they're the victim of something...anyway, this is supposed to be about our anniversary, not the lack of ethics of you-know-who!)
we will actually be celebrating our anniversary tomorrow night because we spent this evening at a party for our friend jill who is getting married saturday. brian grew up with jill, and her sweet family is part of our church family. jill helped make our wedding day such a memorable one with her extraordinary musical gifts of singing and playing violin. how special it will be to share in her wedding day on our anniversary weekend! (though we won't really be adding anything special to her day except congratulating her and partaking in wedding cake... brian says he could play the harmonica! ha!)
to be married to a loving christian man is a true joy and a blessing. i must admit that there are many days that i take this great gift for granted. i pray that over the years as brian and i grow together in God's grace and mercy, those days will become fewer and farther between. i pray that i will humbly realize on a daily basis the awesome gift that God has given me in my husband of four wonderful years.
happy anniversary, honey!
when i was last chatting with you all, it was the morning of our 3rd anniversary. (it's been so long, i thought i'd remind you!!) what a sweet day it was. :) brian had 2 dozen roses delivered, which remained absolutely beautiful for over 2 weeks. they are still pretty-- they're just dark purple and a bit crispy now. but they're still arranged nicely with no drooping! i am sorry to say that i only have this first picture of the day they were delivered. i can't believe i didn't take another picture of them- they opened up so well and were just beautiful. thank you for treasuring me, honey! flowers definitely speak my love language, and i'm pretty sure i know how to get straight to his heart....with a cookie cake! the kids and i snuck up to the mall to bring home this cute little cake. (and of course, i loved helping him eat it-heehee!) 
we knew that the actual day of our anniversary (tuesday) was going to be a busy one (more on that later), so we planned for our date to be that weekend. for dinner on the night of our anniversary, we waited until the kids were in bed, and we set out our china, toasting glasses from our wedding, and our honeymoon candles... we dressed up and enjoyed a romantic, candlelight dinner. i was planning on cooking, but i actually felt horrible that day, so stouffers cooked us a delicious lasagna dinner that night! it was a fun little adventure having a homemade date after 8 pm. we didn't have to share our bread with ethan or pick up caroline's cup off the floor one time! :) oh the little things.... here's the scene from our candlelight dinner...
later that weekend, my hubby and i enjoyed dinner at carrabba's (YUM!), a trip to home depot, dessert at TGIFriday's (2 words: brownie obsession!!!), and then on to books-a-million. i know, i know, we're party animals! haha. you'll see why we went to home depot in just a few posts... (hint: our kitchen chairs will not be white much longer! or the walls!)
what a blessing to celebrate another year with a God-fearing man who is committed to taking care of his family. thank you, honey, for your sweet dedication and your unconditional love. i praise God for you. iloveyou!
brian snuck this little video onto my computer today and wrote an automatic script so that when i signed on, the video would automatically play. he's so cute. :)
(argh! for some reason the audio and the video aren't matching up.... i've uploaded twice to youtube, and it's still not syncing... it's a youtube problem and i don't have time to mess with it... so just use your imagination...)
happy anniversary to YOU, honey!! i love you!
ahh, this time 2 years ago, we were strolling the streets of charleston, hand in hand as husband and wife... with not a care in the world except what we should order for our breakfast that would be delivered to our room the next morning. :) we actually stopped in amelia island for the first two nights..after first going to chick-fil-a and walmart (ha--we laughed pretty hard about that!). we stayed at the most wonderful b&b, the elizabeth pointe lodge. our room overlooked the atlantic ocean... and it was more than beautiful. then we headed on to charleston, where we stayed downtown right by the water at the harbourview inn. we took an airplane ride over downtown charleston, which was quite an adventure! we also planned on going on this huge sailboat while we were there, but we were quickly reminded that hurricane season is not limited to our neck of the woods... we visited the biggest oak tree we've ever seen and loved exploring downtown. we visited the market (where they sell those crazy expensive baskets!) and took the tourist carriage ride, too... so much fun. we could've stayed a lot longer. enjoy all the pictures.... 
i love this picture of us entering our home
for the first time as husband and wife...
here we go to amelia island!
this is our bed & breakfast on amelia island.
our room was the very middle 3 windows on the 2nd floor.
our quaint little room
our view overlooking the atlantic...
the candles in the window are now in our bedroom,
and the smell always reminds me of our honeymoon!
the beautiful porch downstairs
see? not a care in the world. :)
we got caught!
now on to charleston...
the harbourview inn...
our room was to the left of that really bright part on the wall.
the brick in our room dates way back to sometime important...
they turned down our bed & left chocolates on our pillows every night. :)
the little airplane we rode
a lighthouse off the coast of charleston
we loved exploring the historic neighborhoods
more historic downtown
isn't this a huge tree?
you can see how tiny we are compared to it
these baskets in the market are famous... and crazy expensive!
i asked about the price of one, and the lady said, "three fifty"...
at first, i thought she meant $3.50, but it was $350!!
one more kiss.....
today is the 2nd anniversary of the day that brian and said "i do"... it was a perfect day and a perfect beginning of a life together....for two imperfect people depending on a perfect God for true happiness and joy. i sometimes still get giggly at the fact that we're married (i think i exclaimed "we're married!" at least 500 times on our honeymoon)... i'm thankful for the countless ways in which God is teaching us and blessing us on a daily basis. i love my husband, and i can't wait to celebrate our anniversary for years and years to come!!! i could go on and on, but i thought you'd all rather see some pictures from our wedding day.
august 28, 2004
that day i became a part of brian's fun and crazy family! :)
the ceremony seemed to go by so quickly...
i especially loved this part :)
our wedding party
my favorite part...the cake!
i loved seeing the ring on my husband's finger!
off to happily ever after!
a daddy with his little boy in his lap just melts my heart... especially when they're my boys! my favorite part of the day is when brian gets home and gives his undivided attention to ethan. just had to share this picture... 
just wanted to share the sweet tulips that brian had delivered for mother's day. i'm thankful that they arrived on thursday so that they could brighten my day through taking care of my sick boys this past weekend. :) thank you, honey, for honoring me with these beautiful flowers and with your love every day!
valentine's day has come and gone, and with that day enters the excitement of love and flowers and special sentiments from your valentine. we had a wonderfully relaxing valentine's day here. on valentine's eve, brian came home with white roses that look beautiful in our white linen bedroom. the next morning, i began my surprises for him. :) i snuck out to his car and put heart window sticky things all over the inside of his windows. he was also greeted with messages of love written on his windows. though he thought this was cute, he also reminded me that "he worked at a place that makes things that blow up and hurt people, and he couldn't drive through security with hearts on his windows"... aww shucks. :) i went to mops that morning, where we were greatly encouraged by a wife of over 30 years on how to love our husbands and bring glory to God. it was awesome!! i don't think there was a dry eye in the room. i hurried home because brian was taking the afternoon off to spend with me. 
before he got home, i had hearts hanging in every doorway of our house. (they're still there, actually.) on each heart, i wrote something that i loved about him. i originally had cut out one heart for each doorway, but i kept thinking of things i loved, so i had to keep making more hearts! when he got home, we had a romantic lunch of heart-shaped grilled cheese, and then we had the whole afternoon to relax! it was a blessing. later that evening, we went to our valentine's day restaurant, topped off by marble slab ice cream. :) oh, and i put the hearts back up on his car windows for our evening out.
though valentine's day was special, i'm so thankful that brian doesn't wait till february 14 every year to tell me that he loves me. he remembers those vows we committed to on our wedding day, and he lives them out all year long. he's the picture of patience with me!!!! (i can't put sufficient emphasis on that!) he is a wonderful husband and daddy, and ethan and i are blessed to have him take such good care of us!! 
inside our wedding bands is engraved "every day i do". we stole this phrase from one message in a series on relationships (click here for the mp3 file) at covenant life church that really encouraged us before we got married. eric simmons talked about how The Wedding Day that is most important is not the wedding day when you become husband and wife... it's the Day that we will become the bride of Christ! and every day leading up to that Wedding Day is a day to say "i do" to God. as much as we looked forward to our wedding day of becoming "mr. and mrs.", there is a Day that we should look forward to even more! this message helped us remember that getting married was not the end of our waiting and anticipation and excitement. it should be the beginning. and to us, this phrase "every day i do" also reminds us of the day we exchanged our wedding vows...how we vowed those words for life. it's our little secret phrase... well, it was. ha. sorry honey. :)
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