Nine Years and Still Crazy About Each Other

My sweetheart and I just celebrated our 9th year of marriage together! It is amazing how fast the time has gone. I used to think that couples married for 10 years were getting so old and mature and either knowing everything about how to have a great marriage or their marriage is falling apart. Neither of those is happening to us which is maybe not so good with the former half of the sentence but great in regards to the latter half. We can't believe that we have been married that long until we count up our four children! Then we realize how much time and how many experiences of life we have gone through together. The great thing is that we are grateful for everything we have been able to go through together and that we still want to go through an eternity of experience together. Not to mention the fact that we are still so much in love after all this time (I mean, in reality we have been a couple for 15 years!) I am so glad that my first choice turned out to be such a great choice!

For our anniversary this year we spent a couple days together (alone!) in Seattle. We were married in the Seattle Temple so it was romantic to attend that temple together again. It was so nice not to have the stress of dealing with kids for a couple days and to not have the burdens of daily living to think about. To just get away from it all and focus on each other for two whole days was heavenly. It was great to realize that we are still crazy about each other and enjoy each other's company. It isn't like we never remember those things but it seems to come in a lot clearer on these anniversary trips that we take. It is so relaxing to just be the husband/wife/best friend and leave off the father/mother/provider/nurturer/homemaker/church worker/teacher, etc. It allows you to remember why you fell in love in the first place. Here are some of those reasons for me:

1. He is a kind person.

2. We can laugh together and don't take ourselves too seriously all the time.

3. He loves the gospel.

4. He loves family.

5. He is very appreciative of my strengths and verbalizes his
admiration. : )

6. He is also very forgiving of my weaknesses and is rarely critical of me. (Something I do not do so well at myself) : (

7. He is a gentleman and a gentle man.

8. He is an affectionate person.

9. He seriously finds me a beautiful and attractive person even after 4 children and definite changes in body sizes and shapes!

10. And finally, he is a very handsome man. : )

There have been many more reasons to add to the list since marriage and children but they have nothing to do with why I fell in love in the first place so we will leave it at that. He is a great man and father and I am very grateful to have found him and hopefully get to spend an eternity with him.

One sad thing is that I have hardly any pictures of him and me together since we were married. And most of that is simply because I have hated how I looked and found myself unphotographable. I am going to try hard to rectify this in the future--not that I now think I look good in pictures but it is sad to not have any pictures to record our years together. I was going to get some pictures on our anniversary trip but forgot the camera in rushing out the door. That is the reason that there is no picture of us for this blog. Maybe in the future I can post a picture of the two of us. Until then I will just post a picture of Paul since this blog is about him and his greatness! : )