Happy Birthday Hubby!

Dear Hubby,
I am praising God today that you were born. (50 years ago...) (Just had to get that in there...)
I cannot imagine my life without you in it. You are my best friend. Thank you for devoting your life to Christ, to me, Caleb and Megan and now to Amanda and Zach.


If I had to choose one word to describe you it would be commitment. 
You are committed to your relationship with God, and you are committed to me and our marriage.


We've had some joyous times in our marriage and we've been through some pretty tough times. Through it all you have stayed committed. You've chosen to stand by me no matter what. (Even though I said those words in my wedding vows to you, you have done the same to me.)
Thank you for being my partner in life. For being my partner in raising our two amazing kids.
I appreciate your example of seeking after God. You have sat by me and read to me from the Psalms when I have been sick. (Remember those days I was in the hospital in Singapore and you read the Psalms to me? I sure do.)

A couple of Christmases ago you gave me this little plaque:

That says Commitment to me. How blessed am I to have you in my life?

 

This past Christmas I gave you this to remind us that even though we are done with having children in our home, that we are done with the day to day job of raising them, that our life together is changing from what it was for many years, what it had been for most of our marriage, it is still you & me. Always.

A few weeks ago we saw this video of Dancing in the Minefields. There is a line that says:

But to lose your life for another I've heard is a good place to begin

Cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down

And I believe it's an easy price for the life that we have found

Remember that Keith Green concert we went to back in 1982?  (We weren't even dating yet. You were just my best friend.) Do you recall how we sang to each other?  

Remember there's no greater love to lay down your life for a friend.

What a life we have found in being able to lay our lives down for each other! You have done that for me countless times in so many big and small ways. Thank you are such inadequate words. 

So, sweetie, let's grab a hold of each others hands and go dancing in the minefields. Life with you is so worth every hard time and such a thrill to have the wonderful, joyous times to celebrate together.

I am so blessed for you to be apart of my life for the past almost 30 years. (Way more than half our lives, baby!)

Love Always,

I Said I love You and That's Forever

My hubby and I have been married for 26 years, 3 months and some extra days. 


I am blessed.


I love being married.

I can't decide which opening line I like better. So I will use all of them.

This whole marriage thing has come into much better focus to me since it's back to just the two of us. What do I see? I see that we approach life very differently.

Some examples:

*He is a morning person. I am a night-owl. He gets up ready to go in the mornings, it takes me a couple of hours to feel human.

*Hubby is quite competitive. I don't think I have a competitive bone in my body. Case in point: We have the same cell phones. I found an application that was similar to Boggle, a word game both like. I was having fun playing it and seeing how many words I could find. Hubby then loaded the same game on his phone. He soon realized the scoring was not the same as the real version of the game and found a couple of things he didn't like about it. I hadn't even noticed. (Now I don't like the game either.)

*Hubby can fall asleep in 2.5 seconds flat. Some nights I'm lucky if I fall asleep in under 30 minutes.

*He loves to run and does it about four times a week. For 40 minutes or more. I hate to exercise. 'Nough said.

*Hubby likes to organize things and enjoys doing it. I love for things to be organized, but I tend to get stressed out in the process. Just last night I was attempting to organize all of our CDs. Hubby dragged the box full of CDs upstairs a few days ago. Late yesterday afternoon, I unloaded them all. (Believe me, we have a lot of them.) I started stacking them on the floor around me. Pretty soon, I realized I was in over my head. Hubby called to tell me he was coming home and asked how I was doing. I said I was buried in CDs and wasn't sure what to do with them all. He laughed and said he'd be home soon. As soon as he walked in the door, he jumped right in and within 10 minutes we had a plan on what to do with them all and within probably 45 minutes he had them all organized. My hero!

*Hubby likes to watch sports. Football, basketball, baseball. He likes it. I tell him I think every game looks the same. I don't understand how he can watch so many games. He loved being at our Alma Mater's Homecoming Game last weekend. I was bored out of my mind. I've asked a few questions, especially about football, and I still don't understand it or like it.

*He is a very patient person. He cheerfully let me wander down memory lane last Sunday. And has agreed to some more Memory Lane wandering this coming weekend.

*Probably my most favorite thing is that he loves me unconditionally. I am often blown away at his love for me. I am ever grateful for our marriage as an earthly example of God's love for me. A few weeks ago we got into quite a heated disagreement. It was mostly because of my fears. After we had apologized to each other and forgave each other I asked him, "What can I do to make you happy with me again?" He answered, "Sweetie, you don't have to do anything. I love you." I about fell on the floor. Isn't that the way it is with God? We really don't have to do things to make Him love us. He just does.

My conclusion? We are very different people. We approach life differently. We are amazingly crazy in love with each other. And Happy.

Our son Caleb took a bunch of pictures at his sister's wedding. This was one of them. It's my favorite, mostly because of the caption he put with the photo when he posted it on Facebook.

Marriage works, these two are proof.

**SIGH**

As I was contemplating this post I heard a perfect song when I was out shopping. Despite all our differences, I love you, honey. Just the way you are.

October Photo Journal -- Day 18

This weekend we finally found something we've been looking for for 3 1/2 months. A small cabinet to fit a small space to replace this awesome looking mixer box:

While I love my mixer, the box just wasn't quite doing it.

So after looking, and looking, and looking with a little Internet browsing thrown in, we found a cabinet that would fit in that spot and would hold the telephone and quite likely, lots of other junk.

Some assembly required.

But my awesome hubby persevered and now we have this:

Now to choose what stuff to fill it up with... I'm sure that won't take long.

October Photo Journal -- Day 6

Today I made $260 an hour.
I am awesome. Just trying to figure out what job title that falls under...

I took my car in to get maintenance, oil change and some new tires. My hubby had called to set up the appointment a couple of days ago. He was quoted a price for the 4 tires.

Jump ahead to this afternoon. (I know all you readers are sitting on the edge of your seats...)

I waited 1 1/2 hours while the car was being serviced. I tried to do some things on my computer, but the internet connection at the car place stunk. When I went to pay the bill, I noticed it was quite a bit higher than the quoted price the hubby had written down. I just showed them the Post-It that he had written the price on and the chaos ensued.

Somebody had to talk to somebody, that somebody told me my husband just didn't understand and they had haggled about it on the phone. All I said was, "I don't know what your conversation was. All I know is he gave me this Post-It and told me that was the price he was quoted."

More chaos. 

I ended up sitting in some manager's office and he was trying to tell me his cost for the tires, blah blah blah...

(like I'd believe a car salesman over my own husband)

I ended up calling the hubby to confirm what I already knew. That was the price he was quoted (including installation and balancing). So more haggling.... finally the guy told me he was giving me a deal and he would take the loss.
(I really wanted to tell him I was sure he'd make it up in the sell of his next car, but I refrained.)

So, I saved us $130 by saying, "This is the price my husband says he was quoted." Take that times the half hour I spent with the haggling (on their part. I didn't say much) and it comes out to $260 an hour. Pretty great, huh? I'll collect my paycheck when I get home later today. :) Thank-you-very-much.

Aren't the new tires pretty?

Where We're Headed

Just in case anyone was wanting to know......

The hubby and I will be hanging out on this ship next week

We're headed north to Alaska to celebrate our 26th anniversary!!! We are soooo excited!

I'll have TONS of pictures to share when we get back. I have a few posts lined up, so there will be a bit to read while we are gone.

Toodles!

July 4th

I know the 4th of July was a few weeks ago. The hubby and I had a great little weekend get-away and I haven't written about it yet. I get an excuse because of the whole moving and unpacking 600 boxes and all...

We headed to some lakes in northern Iowa. I hadn't been there for 30 years. Yes, it had changed. Go figure. One thing hadn't changed. The amusement park. This wooden roller coaster has been there since my mom was a little girl. (Oh, I imagine they have replaced and updated parts of it, but it's still wooden and that's pretty awesome.)

We had fun a an hour and a half tour on this boat. It was interesting to learn some history of the area and it was nice to cool off out on the lake.

One thing we spotted from the boat was this bald eagle. Since they have basically been extinct in my lifetime, it is really cool to see those in the wild. I know it's not a terrific picture, but I was surprised to see my little camera captures the white head of the eagle.

Hubby and I enjoyed a weekend away from the unpacking. Unfortunately the unpacking/put-everything-away fairies didn't show up at our house while we were gone.

Dear Hubby:

Happy Father's Day to my sweetheart. Without you I could never have had the best job I have ever had. Being a mom. It's been a wonderful 23 years with you as my partner in parenthood. Those two kids of ours are pretty darn lucky.

I saw this in a catalog and thought of you:

You are the cheese to my macaroni.
You are the horizon to my sky.
You are the bacon to my eggs.
You are the laces to my sneakers.
You are the jelly to my peanut butter.
You are the smile to my face. 
You are the gravy to my mashed potatoes.
You are the bubbles to my bath.
You are the milk to my cookie.
You are the ink to my pen.
You are the ketchup to my french fries.
You are the water to my ocean.
You are the icing on my cupcake.

I love you, honey.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my man's birthday. I am so thankful he was born and I that I am lucky enough to be married to him!

He gave me this for Christmas. I feel the same way about him!

I am blessed.

Love you Honey!

 

Flowers!

Look! Flowers! Pansies! Blooming! In February!

 

Yes, I'm excited! No, I'm not in Minnesota. I flew to South Carolina with the hubby who came here on business. I'm enjoying the bigger city and have no idea how I will decide where to eat lunch tomorrow...so many choices! Chick-fil-A is on the list of possibilities for sure. 

 

Daily Photo Journal - January 21

Lunch with the hubby today. (He was talking to our daughter for a bit.)

I love lunch with the hubby.

Movie Review

We rarely rent a movie, let alone watch so many in a short amount of time. We did rent a bunch of movies when we thought we might be snowed in. We paid $8 for six movies. Not bad at all when you consider we paid $8 a PERSON for a movie in the theater a couple of nights ago. (That one was Sherlock Holmes. It was pretty good, but do we really NEED that many fight scenes in a movie?) We ended up watching four out of the six since we did end up going to Iowa for the weekend to celebrate Christmas with our extended families.

Here's our take on the movies we watched. I know you were all just so anxious to know what we thought of them. You're welcome. ;)

1. Father of the Bride (1950 version) - This one starred Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy. Before I saw this at the video store I never knew there was an old version of this. It was really good. I really did notice the lack of background music. There was some, but there were some really obvious spots that were a bit awkward without it. I don't always notice the sound track in a movie and that's one thing my son always comments on. There were some really funny true-to-life moments. We thought we needed to watch this since the hubby is soon to be the father of the bride.

2. Hotel Rwanda - We didn't get this one watched.
3. Grapes of Wrath (1940 version) - We didn't get this one watched either.

4. The Soloist - This was such a good movie. It's about a columnist for the Los Angeles Times who comes across a homeless man who is an amazing musician. The cello is his instrument. The homeless man has some mental disabilities. There are parts of it inside Disney Hall. A fabulous concert hall. I'd love to hear a symphony there. A friend of mine's son goes to USC and has been able to go to a few concerts there. It shows a side of LA (and likely many cities across the world) that broke my heart. The homeless. So many people with no home. So many people with mental problems. So many people lost. All in all a really good movie. Jamie Fox and Robert Downy, Jr. are quite awesome in the movie.

5. Seven Pounds - Will Smith. Good Actor. Somewhat confusing movie. Will Smith's character is trying to pay back for an accident he caused that killed seven people including his fiance. We did enjoy it. Heart wrenching to see someone who couldn't forgive themselves for an accident. Kind of an odd, questionable ethical ending. We did have enough questions at the end that Wikipedia came in very handy and explained the whole movie, including the meaning behind the title.

6. My Life in Ruins - This one stars the same actress as the one in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was a pretty funny light-hearted movie. If you've ever been on a tour bus, even for just a day, you will be able to relate. We had fun with this movie and enjoyed being able to laugh at it.

Our Mini 25th Anniversary Get-Away

July 28th marked 25 years of marriage. Pete and I were able to get away for a day and a half. We found a neat Bed&Breakfast less than an hour and a half away.

This was right on a lake. When we looked out the window from our room all we could see was water.

A neat thing we got to do that night was to grill our own supper. Here's my hubby hard at work:
And me being happy/silly. (I like me better without glasses... might need to look into contacts...)

Pete's supper:

My supper. Notice the shape of the Chicken breast? It's a heart. Isn't that romantic?

We watched the sunset over the lake. So pretty!

In Which I Get Perspective After a Night of Not Much Sleep

I had to watch this this morning since last night was seemingly impossible to sleep with all the snoring. This gives me perspective. Watch it. You won't be sorry.

Happy Birthday to My Man

Dearest Pete,
I know I've told you a million times, but I am glad you were born and I'm glad you are my husband. I love so many things about you. You are an amazing father. I wouldn't have wanted to raise kids with anyone but you. You are dedicated to me, your kids, your job. But the thing that makes you who you are and gives you the ability to do all those so incredibly is your faith and trust in God. Thank you for loving Jesus and dedicating your life to Him.


Happy Birthday Sweetheart!
I hope I sufficiently honor you today.


Love and Kisses,