Happy Anniversary!

Five years ago today, Dave and I were married in our front yard in Gardendale at 2:00 in the afternoon. I was a nervous wreck all day and he ran five miles that morning just to say he could.

We joke that we like doing things out of order because we bought the house, booked the honeymoon, and then he asked me to marry him. It was a given all along, but I did prod him a bit when I booked the honeymoon and told him we'd have to get married before May because we were going to Mexico.

I was living at our house in Gardendale and he was staying with his parents until we got married. When we talked on the phone in the evenings, I would tell him about this big spider that spun it's web on the porch every night. I think he started to worry about me being there all alone, because on the morning of September 13, 2003 he brought me two kittens. One of them had my grandmother's engagement ring on her collar. He told me he wanted to make all my dreams come true, and he named the kitten Jewel. It was perfect. The most perfect way he could have dreamed of proposing to me.

We debated about planning a big wedding, thought we were going to do it in Gardendale, and then decided the stress of it was too much. He called his childhood preacher and asked if he would come to our house to marry us. We had a wedding reception in April, and took our honeymoon in May, when we were both finished with school for the semester. We had a whole season of wedding events.

Since then, we both finished school (law school for him and grad school for me), renovated our house, added a dog and another cat to our family, sold our house, moved back to Montevallo, moved again, and added a baby to the family. Right this minute, my entire family is sitting in the same room with me. Ella is playing ball with Georgia, Jewel and Gypsy are hiding under chairs, and Dave is facilitating the ball game. I've been so blessed.

Dave and I met at the grocery store where we both worked. I was still in high school then, and he was in college. A few years later, after my first year of college, he asked me on a date. We drove to Prattville to see the House of Crosses. It was the most bizarre first date I've ever been on, but it was right. Within six months, I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with him.

I asked him the other night if he could repeat a phase or time in his life, to change it or not, when would it be? He pondered it, and threw out several ideas, but he came back to those first six months we dated. My answer was the same.

Happy Anniversary, love of my life. I can't wait to see what the years to come bring.