Ten Favorite Moments from the last 3 years.

Today is Taylor and I's THIRD wedding anniversary. It simultaneously seems like it was just yesterday and forever ago. To commemorate the event, especially since my darling is gone for this entire week, I thought it would be fun to reminisce about some of my very favorite, random moments in our marriage. So here they are, in no particular order.

1. Visiting OCI (my school) for the first time, sitting in the school restaurant and deciding that we were taking the plunge and starting this adventure. I kept asking him over and over, "Are you sure?" And he just smiled and took my hand and said, "Let's do it."

2. Standing in line at Space Mountain (Disney Land) at 1 a.m. on our honeymoon, with a high fever and wicked cold, realizing that we had a 3 hour drive back to Palm Springs yet to go. In which my darling husband decided he was too tired to drive the last hour and left me, in my sickly state, to finish the journey. I was not happy about it at the time, but it's pretty funny now.

3. Being played the ridiculously pitiful message I left on my love's voicemail during his first long recruiting trip in Colorado. I had a really bad flu and I hadn't slept or eaten in a few days. It's the saddest thing ever and he still listens to it and laughs.

4. Driving up to our church, Mosaic, for the first time and just knowing that it was the place for us. Taylor is not as "instinctual" as me, but talking about it on the way home and knowing that we had found a place we could get connected to and grow together, was a great feeling.

5. One morning, a couple of years ago, I was driving to work and drove right by a pair of shoes in the road. I remember thinking to myself, "Taylor has shoes just like those!" and I continued on, minding my own business. Later on in the day, I get a call from my darling who is telling me how he had to wear his tennis shoes for a recruiting visit because he couldn't find his dress shoes. He figured he had left them at home, but as soon as he said that, I knew exactly where they were. I could not stop laughing.

6. The few days we spent stuck in our tiny little apartment, due to a freak snowstorm, just a few months after we were married. We kind of drove each other crazy, but I also remember walking to get groceries and coffee, taking photos in the snow and snuggling up on the couch, watching MadMen.

7. Watching my love and his three brothers play in and win Hoopla (a local 3-on-3 basketball tournament) the last four years in a row. I've always loved watching Taylor play bball, it's why I first fell for him, but it's always catches me off guard how totally foxy he is on that court. :)

8. Working through a lot of conflict related to dreams, doing a lot of communicating and being super intentional about listening to each other. We both have talents and interests that we've been exploring the last couple of years and at times it has seemed that those conflicted, or the other didn't share them or even that we couldn't reach those goals while being tied to the other. Through a couple years of work and God's grace, I feel like we've been able to fine tune those dreams to fit into our life together and understand enough about the other's to stand behind and support them. It's truly freeing and has been a huge step in our relationship. We're not tying each other down, we're taking turns lifting each other up, closer to the things we want to achieve.

9. The morning that our couches were being delivered to our new house (anytime between 6-11), we got up early, packed up all our blankets and snuck into our bare, newly finished home. We turned on the fireplace, spread the blankets over the floor and snuggled in to snooze and wait for our new furniture. Despite the fact that this house has been a huge source of stress, conflict and is now quite inconvenient for where I work and go to school, I still realize how incredibly blessed we are to have been able to have it.

10. The one moment at our wedding that I was truly able to feel and experience the immense blessing I was receiving in Taylor. To be quite honest, despite the fact that it was super fun, we were so blessed to have so much love and support and everything we planned turned out great, most of our wedding is a blur. And, if we had to do it over again (thank God we don't!) I would have gone MUCH simpler. But that one moment I got, in our first few minutes of marriage, while we were up on the stage doing our communion and saying a prayer, that moment of realizing that I could relax, I had found my love and I had a partner to live my life with, that moment was absolutely perfect.

Happy THREE YEARS, love! You are my best friend, an incredible husband, a perfect TV watching buddy, an excellent sous chef and one sexy basketball player. :) I love you.