Nine Years of Wedded Bliss

Today is our ninth wedding anniversary!

Wowza! Where does the time go???

While nine years of wedded bliss is something to celebrate...there's no one here to celebrate it with me. Well, except for four kids. Three of which have snotty noses and gunky coughs and one of those which has yet another ear infection. Super.

While I nurse all the sickos back to health with some homemade chicken noodle soup (so what if it's over 100 degrees outside?!) and a few uninterrupted hours of Netflix, husband Joe is once again off on another business trip.

Sigh. So typical.

Even though he may be absent, I'm so grateful for the hardworking man he is and the dedication he gives to providing for our little family. I love the good, good person he is through and through. He is gentle and kind and sensible. He is calm and down to earth and has managed to balance my wild, erratic side out a bit over the our marriage. He has a sense of humor that sneaks up and attacks you when you're least expecting it and he's managed to keep me laughing for the last nine years.

I love you Joe! Thank you for marrying me and staying married to me through the thick and the thin.

And to celebrate, albeit solo, why not take a walk down memory lane? Here are nine memories and nine pictures from our wedding day back on July 11th, 2003.

1. I didn't sleep very well the night before our wedding. I woke--wide awake--at 3 am and couldn't fall back asleep. I decided to go ahead and start the beautification process for the early wedding ceremony. When I swung my feet over the side of my bed I heard a loud squish. Or was it more of a subdued splash? Either way, it was quickly apparent that my parents' basement had flooded during the night. Side note: the reception was held in my parents' backyard that evening.

2. Joe cried, nay, bawled through the entire temple sealing ceremony. I was really hoping he did so because he was overwhelmed with my beauty...And not because he realized there was no going back now.

3. For LDS couples that marry in the temple, it's rather a big moment when they exit the temple doors as a newly sealed couple. The family and friends gather around the doors and wait for this joyous moment. I didn't realize this and kind of made a hasty exit from the temple...sans new husband. I was quickly corrected and rerouted, reentered the building, grabbed the hand of my newly attained eternal partner, and then made a more graceful exit...this time with husband in tow. 

4. My dad owned a small limo business at the time and insisted on driving the newly married couple home from the temple. All 104 miles. With the privacy partition rolled completely down the entire way. Thanks Dad. Thanks a lot.

5. On the way home from the temple we stopped at a Sprint store so I could pay my overdue cell phone bill.

6. Our reception started at 6 pm. About 5:56 pm I realized I was so exhausted that I really didn't want to stand and smile anymore. But the show must go on, eh?

7. In an exuberant (translation: stupid) moment I jumped up into my groom's arms with a passionate (translation: awkward) embrace...and ripped the zipper out of the entire length of the back of my wedding dress. I spent that last hour of our reception held together with nothing more than two dozen safety pins and a prayer.

8. My dear sweet husband was so proper he wouldn't even kiss me "enthusiastically" until after the reception.

9. Confession: For all my teasing about his propriety...I was kind of--okay, really--nervous to get in the car and drive away from my family and friends and childhood home with nothing but my new husband and ZERO physical boundaries.

So, as I reminisce about our wedding day I'm realizing there was an abundance of clumsy, awkward, and calamity. And what a beautiful, awkward, magical, exhausting, calamitous, cherished day it was!