A Decade

Today is our 10 year anniversary. I keep thinking......10 years, wow. Time has simply flown by. Hours, days and weeks maybe not so much (especially during trials) but when we're talking years, they go by so fast.

Our weekend away was so nice. I'm so grateful for Marion and her offer to watch the kids. She is one busy lady so a weekend quiet at home would have sounded nice to me but instead she came here. And I'm sure it wasn't quiet! I told the kids a few days earlier and they couldn't wait for Friday! 'It's always fun when GranMimi comes, when GranMimi comes to stay....' Her first overnight at our house with the kids and they loved every minute of it. Thanks Marion!

We spent most of Saturday shopping, both of us were in pretty dire need of new spring/summer clothes. I found some cute shirts and a skirt but not capris or pants so I'm still in dire need there. Any suggestions? I kept finding skinny capris, yuck. At least on me. We had a yummy lunch at Panera Bread and then bought their pastry ring and went to Kyle and Heidi's to share dessert. It was good and it was fun to chat with them for a little while. Plus how can you not smile when your almost 5 yr old niece is jumping up and down with excitement when you're getting ready to knock on the door?

We were really undecided about dinner and were going to hit up either The Melting Pot or The Cheesecake Factory. Then Heidi suggested we try Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. I've known a few people that have eaten there and they have raved about it. We went back a forth but decided that it would be a long time before we'd be back in Seattle without kids and willing to spend plenty of $$ on dinner so we went for it. I'm so glad we did. It was DE.LI.CIOUS.

Saturday was on again off again with the rain and the two times we were going to walk around the temple it was raining. Ok, probably misting to people that live there but rain to me and enough I couldn't take my camera out in it. I was a little bummed but thought we might be able to stop on Sunday and take some photos through the fence.

Sunday was gorgeous weather of course, so on our way out of town we stopped at the temple. The gate was locked but I still wanted to take a few photos through the gate. Then a man watching the grounds offered to let us in and walk around. He said they open up at noon (it was 930ish) but it would be fine if we went in. I felt a little scrubby not in a dress but I went and got Milo from the car and we went onto the grounds. It was beautiful and so peaceful.

I almost immediately got teary eyed walking down the sidewalk, it reminded me of all the hope you're filled with on your wedding day. The hope is still there, it's just a little harder to find with the chaos of everyday life and the discouragements along the way. I've been sentimental this weekend, must've been all that quiet time, it let my mind think.

I thought about our wedding day, the day Nathan was born, the day Milo lost a parent, the day Dane was born, the day we made the decision to add Kathryn to our family, the day Milo graduated college, the day Reed was born, the many days of enduring a difficult job, the days of job loss, moving here and more. But mostly I thought about the days yet to come. Many will be as good as these or better and yet I know some will be harder than we've seen so far. Without sounding too sure of myself, I'm ready for it because we've made some great memories and I'll willingly face the hard to get the good.

Here's to 10 more, a few times over and back again.