8 years!

This past Tuesday, June 24, Luke and I celebrated our 8th anniversary! We are so thankful that God has brought us to this point. There have been times in the last 8 years where things have been very, very difficult. Not because we've had fighting, but because sometimes life has been just tough! We watched our wedding video tonight with the kids, and I was struck by how when you're getting married, you really don't fully understand what you're committing yourself to....

....for richer or poorer. We have nailed the "poorer" part down! God has always provided, but things have never been easy for us in this area. Part of it is getting married really young (19 and 20), and part of it is the conscious decision we made for me to not work when the girls were babies. Sure, I could've worked and put us into a higher tax bracket with a better retirement portfolio, but being home to see their first smiles, first steps, and kiss their first boo-boo has been worth more than any paycheck could've brought me. Yes, I am in school now and am planning on working full-time, but I am thankful for the brief windown of opportunity I had to be a stay-at-home mom. (As an aside, I hate the phrase "full-time mom;" even moms who work outside the homes are "full-time moms!")

...in sickness or in health. For those who know our family, you KNOW that we nailed this part down! Since November of 2002, NOT counting Mandy's three surgeries, the delivery of the girls, or my heart surgery, we have had 19 admissions to the hospital (and none of them were for Luke). Two high-risk pregnancies with multiple admissions per pregnancy, Mandy's severe kidney issues as a baby, my heart surgery when Kayla was 3 weeks old, and then Kayla's two admissions as a newborn...yup, we covered that part of the vow! The thought that we would have complicated (even dangerous) pregnancies never crossed my mind when we said our vows, and we certainly never pictured having an incredibly sick baby. I vividly remember the call I got from the pediatrician when Mandy was less than three weeks old with a personal call from the pediatrician saying we needed to bring her in ASAP because he was concerned she could be in kidney failure. Thank the Lord she wasn't! We did, however, have multiple hospital admissions with her and at one point were even sent home from ths hospital with home health care and IV antibiotics. We are thankful that is all far behind us, and the only evidence of Mandy's ordeal is the scar on her side. My heart is fine (although, we aren't having any more children to test the theory), and Kayla's kidneys seem to be holding their own.

...in good times and in bad: Thankfully, except for the above mentioned, we have had very few bad times. We have clung to each other; more importantly, we have clung to the Lord. That doesn't mean it's always been easy (anybody who is married knows that!), but the "good" is so sweet and the "bad" is so rare that in the grand scheme of things, it's "all good!"

So, as we celebrated our 8th anniversary, we can look back at 8 crazy, but wonderful, years. And Luke...I love ya!