Happy Anniversary to Us!

Michael and I have been married eight years today. Today is also the 42nd anniversary of JFK's assassination, as a friend was so nice to remind me of earlier. Fortunately for us, our generation as a whole is too young to have "where were you when JFK was shot?" flashbacks so they are free to focus on celebrating our wedding anniversary. :)

This anniversary is an important one for us- not just because we can say that we have made it successfully and happily through almost 3000 days of married life but because we were actually in the same state, country and continent on this anniversary! This might not seem like that difficult of a feat to most of you but we have only been together on November 22 four times out of eight. On our first anniversary, he had just left Mississipi where we were living to go ahead to Bristol to start a job here and I didn't move until the first weekend in December. We were together on our second anniversary and we ate dinner at KP Duty in downtown Bristol, ( where Michael would tell you we paid "alot of money for a little piece of meat!"- but it was good! :) On our third anniversary, he was in Basic Training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. On our fourth anniversary, he was in Germany and I was here in Bristol. We were together on our fifth anniversary and we went to a nice German restaurant in a hotel near our neighborhood in Bamberg. We were together on our sixth anniversary as well and we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant in Bamberg. (Yes, there are Italian restaurants in Germany.) That anniversary was hard because we had just received the news about the Stop Loss which would send Michael to Iraq. And last year, our seventh anniversary, Michael was in Iraq and I was here in Bristol, 3 months pregnant with Dresden. So, even though we did not officially celebrate today since Dresden is sick with a nasty cold and Michael had class tonight, we are thankful just to SEE each other today!

Being apart so much was hard, especially on important days like these, but as I look back over our eight years of life together, I remember that on our wedding day, we promised to stay together (and only in marriage can you be an ocean apart and still be "together" ) and to love each other through good times and bad. We didn't know then what good times or bad times were coming, and we don't know what's coming tomorrow, but trusting God together and living through the joys and the sorrows together, IS marriage. I love you, Michael.