HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!

Friday, Oct 19th we celebrated 11 years of wedded bliss!!! Wish I could say that they were all blissful but I can say this has been our best year of marriage. God has taught and continues to teach us so much about ourselves and each other and our relationship. Anniversaries and our children's birthdays are always a time of reflection for me. I am a very analytical person so naturally I look back and analyze. I look back on certain times in our marriage and think how did we survive. It was certainly not because we leaned on God because He was not at the center of our lives at all times but thankfully He could see beyond our short comings and gave us lots of chances to make it the way He intended. I think back to when Sallie was born and the next few years following and the stress that came with that and especially the strain on our marriage. God taught us (and continues to teach us) so much through Sallie and the experiences we have had because of her (I could write a book literally on how God has used her just in our lives). We learned what trusting in Him was really about and in turn what it meant to lean on each other. With all the surgeries and doctors appointments and everything that came with all that it took a real toll on our marriage at the time but because of those tough times we came out of it so much stronger. We knew we had to make it work despite our circumstances. We will always have stress from lots of different things in our lives but I think we learned to handle it in a much different way-completely leaning on God and not trying to handle it ourselves. God was preparing us for the stresses of Seminary and leaving our families and He has used that to make us even stronger as a couple in preparation for what lies ahead after this. As hard as moving here was and as much as I long to be "home" this has been a wonderful experience in so many ways but most of all it has brought our marriage to a whole new level and for that I praise God!!!

On Saturday afternoon and night we got a babysitter for 6.5 hours (that is a long time for someone is with their children 24/7). We went to Southlake and walked around and ate and ate ate some more! Most of all we just enjoyed each other and our time together (we could actually complete thoughts and sentences!). We do love those girls but a break was nice! This is a picture of us when we were leaving for our date.