ten years and counting

WOW that's a long time. May not seem like much for some of you old timers, but to even think that I am old enough to have been married for ten years seems crazy. For anyone who has been married more than three weeks, you know that it is full of ups and downs. I think the best premarital advice we ever got was when my dad told us, "when you are dating you may have good days and bad days, when you're married, there will be good years and bad years." After several of each of those over the last decade, I can honestly say that marriage may be alot of work, but in the end it is totally worth it.

Though ten years may seem like a spec on the timeline of our eternity together, here's a glimpse of what's occurred for us in the last decade:

• lived in 5 different homes
• owned a rental property and sold it because the landlord thing really wasn't for us
• flew or drove to Denver at least 25 times (and probably more for me)
• Honeymooned in Costa Rica
• Spent our first anniversary in San Francisco, where people kept asking if we were on our honeymoon and we emphatically answered that we were soo not newlyweds anymore
• Were sealed in the St. George Temple in the middle of August
• Served the poor in Guatemala
• Visited the ruins of Tikal
• Backpacked up the coast of Belize
• Stayed at a Bed and Breakfast one time and decided it was not for us - we need way more privacy than the old lady at breakfast asking us how our night was.
• enjoyed free flight benefits with trips to Houston, LA, Seattle, and Denver of course
• camped at Lake Powell, Bear Lake, Fish Lake, Strawberry Resevoir, Zion's National Park, Yuba Resevoir, Grand Mesa, Lake Tahoe, Goblin Valley, and the middle of nowhere many times
• Road tripped through Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas; and from Utah to the California coast
• hiked and explored in more places than I can remember
• met a mama bear and her cubs face to face at Lake Tahoe
• got nostalgic and wishful visiting the ranch Russ grew up on in Oregon
• spent a week and a half in Washington DC being spoiled by Russ's aunt and uncle
• flew with an 11month old to Hawaii for our 5th anniversary (and to see my brother and sister in law)
• Took our family on a trip to San Diego (won by Corbin)
• showed our kids wild animals up close at Yellowstone
• survived multiple family reunions - mostly with the Maxwell family
• graduated from BYU (Mindy)
• put Russ through Paramedic school by me working at a sporting goods store (and with a little help from his fire dept :)
• shot an almost world record elk (Mindy)
• hunted every year for an elk to compete with his wife's (Russ)
• learned the downsides of investing
• bought two cars, both of which we still have and probably will until the engine falls out
• celebrated numerous birthdays and other holidays, sometimes apart and sometimes together
• built a house in an awesome neighborhood
• brought three beautiful boys into the world (This is a big one!)
• ????

It's interesting that for our 10th anniversary, what I really wanted to do was go to Dubai. My plan worked out perfectly aside from one small detail - Russ wasn't there. (And I wasn't really celebrating, I was just passing through on my way to Africa). And it was just as cool as I thought it would be, but more expensive.  Maybe it's because we have had so many anniversaries, or because we are not super sentimental people, but it didn't really bother us that we were not together on our anniversary. Of course, I did think we would do something to comemmorate this occasion - but times gets away, and now we are going on our 11th year. Oh well. I don't really need to get away or do something fantastic to know that he loves me and that I am so happy to have spent all these days and months and years together.  Looking forward to many, many more.

Happy Anniversary, babe.