Where Three Years Go

It’s hard to believe we’ve been married three years.  It seems like just yesterday that we were saying our vows in sight of Mt. Elden on a sunny, May day.  And yet, here we are…three years later.

My husband commented recently that it seemed like we were newlyweds forever, and then suddenly we were old married people with a baby.  It certainly seems like that some days!  Here’s a recap of our three years together:

We were married May 22, 2010.  After a wonderful, dream honeymoon in Maine and Prince Edward Island, and an epic trip cross-country with my car literally loaded to the brim, we began our new life together in the hills of Northern Arkansas.

 

The first three months were wonderful.  I wasn’t working.  We were renting a tiny little house nestled in the trees.  Andy got off work by 3 pm.  Adventures abounded.

The first few months of married life are funny.  They are wonderful and glorious (especially after 13 long months in a long distance engagement).  Yet, they are full of surprises.  We learned the craziest things about each other.

Like, neither of us really likes baked potatoes, despite eating them often in our growing up years.  Somehow we didn’t realize this fact (that shows we’re a match made in heaven), until after we were married.  Don’t ask me how.  You can guess who’s kid will be the freak who doesn’t know what a baked potato is. :P

Then there were the simple, little surprises.  Like having different ways of doing everything, from which side of the sink the dirty dishes go on, to what goes in a salad, to how laundry should be done.

It’s also quite shocking when your husband tells you he doesn’t like certain items of your clothing because they look like a granny.  Dear homeschooled girls, don’t be fooled.  Nice homeschooled guys don’t want you to cover up every square inch of your body.  Trust me!

Anyway, those first few months passed.  We got a puppy (after a miscommunication about a patio set), my man pulled me out under the gutters in the pouring rain one time when I was being a grouch, and life was new and wonderful.  In August we trekked back across the country to a furniture show in Las Vegas.  Not exactly my cup of tea, but fun nevertheless.   

At the end of August we entered a new phase when I began student teaching.  I went from being home all the time to gone all of the time.  It was an adjustment, but I loved the challenge and I loved the experience. 

The plan after I graduated in December was to substitute teach until I got a teaching job, meanwhile saving up money for a house.  A baby would come a few years later.

Instead, the day after I finished student teaching I began working at my husband’s company.  I did accounting, administrative assistant things, customer service, shipping…you name it and I did it.  Thus began the next year and a half of me working a mix of part-time and full-time at the Ironworks, substitute teaching whenever I could, and working online doing freelance writing.  It was a growing time and a changing time.  I learned so much and don’t regret a moment!

That spring we began looking into buying a house.  At first we looked for land, with the intention of building.  That didn’t seem too feasible at the moment, so we began looking at houses instead.  Every day during student teaching I passed this rock house nestled under a giant oak tree.  We weren’t looking for houses at the time, but I had always been curious.  Well, guess who ended up buying that rock house in June?  Yep, us!  Thus, we moved out of our sweet little rent house with the drafty door and the mouse problem, and into our much bigger fixer-upper, with an even bigger mouse problem. 

In the midst of all the craziness surrounding buying this house we celebrated our first anniversary with a wonderful cruise to Key West and Cozumel.  Talk about fun!  In Cozumel we went on a speed boat excursion.  I had to sign a waver saying I wasn’t pregnant.  It made me think about how thankful I was for our year with just the two of us.  Yet, I had to admit that the longing for a baby was there.  But I waited and prayed and enjoyed speedboats in Cozumel.  Just the two of us.

But back to the rock house.  Our fixer upper became our obsession.  We ripped things out, I learned a ton about home remodeling, and painting became my hobby.  We had fights about how we wanted to do things.  Mostly, though, we grew closer together working on our hodge-podge rock house. 

Then came August.  My man came to me and told me he felt like God wanted us to move our “trying to having a baby” timeline up.  Like, way up.  We prayed about it.  Peace flooded over us.  It just seemed right.  So we decided to start trying in three months time.  And, yes, our kitchen in our new home was still a shambles. 

We began prepping and saving and getting ready.  We finished the kitchen.  And what would be the baby’s room.  And then we started trying.  I was pretty much instantly pregnant. 

We had nine more months together of just the two of us.  And my ever-growing belly.  We drove out to North Carolina for the High Point Furniture Market (which had become a twice-a-year thing for us).  We celebrated our second anniversary in Branson.  We flew out to Arizona when I was 30 weeks pregnant for my sister’s high school graduation, as well as to see my other sister and her two precious little girls.  We spent a lot of time that summer riding in Andy’s jeep and swimming at the creek.  We savored every minute. 

 

  Picture by Kevin Thomas Photography

 

And then my due date came.  We ate dinner at Tommy’s Pizza with some friends (who were also expecting their first baby!), watched a movie with them, and then went to bed.  A few hours later I woke up Andy and told him it was time.  Six hours later our sweet Miles Patrick entered the world, healthy and beautiful and life-changing. 

 

And here we are, at our three year anniversary.  Our sweet Miles in nine months old.  We don't even remember how we spent our time before he came.  Our marriage experienced some testing when he first came, but it has come out so much stronger and richer and deeper. 

I am so thankful for these past three years, and all that they have brought.  Marriage is a wonderful, beautiful, crazy, hard, amazing adventure.  And I love every minute.