10th Wedding Anniversary

10 little big years have gone by since Ben and I sealed the deal.  It some ways it feels like we have always existed as a joint entity.  In other ways, the 10 years have gone by so quickly!  I love him.  Not just because he’s unnaturally perfect.  Though, he really is unnaturally perfect for me.  I just love him.  I love the way he makes me feel about myself.  I love the calm stability I feel when I’m with him – like everything will always work out.  I love the way he loves our children.  I love that he’s always so helpful.  His actions have always spoken just as loud as his words.  He’s my perfect other half and I thank God everyday for blessing me with him.  And I pray everyday that I’ll never live a single day without him.

A little reminiscing…..

Ben had been in Thailand and India the summer before the wedding.  He arrived about a week before the wedding.  We hadn’t seen each other for two+ months.  I was worried he would feel like a stranger and I’d have to break off the wedding!  But, no worries, it took about 12 seconds before I fell in love with him again and knew we were perfect together.

After looking through our pictures I’m reminded of how sick and lightheaded I felt that day.  I think I look gloomy in most of the pictures.  My nerves were really getting to me.  I dreaded all the attention! Dreaded, dreaded, dreaded!  I hadn’t eaten well in weeks and had shoulder surgery earlier in the summer which had really zapped my strength.  I got sick twice the morning of  the wedding.  Also, some drama with friends put a damper on things.  So much was on my mind!  I wish I had enjoyed the day more.  Instead it felt like something I just had to get through to enjoy my happily ever after.  Hah!  I remember I weighed myself at a grocery store in the Keys on our honeymoon and I only weighed 97 lbs.  The stress and anticipation – no fun.  Finally being married – very fun!

My other strong memory of the day was an overwhelming amount of support.  We felt so much love and happiness from our friends and families.  Ben’s family was so welcoming and kind.  They all came from Utah, even two aunts, and much of my out of town family came, too!  I wish I had had a little more maturity to have been a better host.  We probably had  35ish people fly or drive in to be with us and I’ve always worried I didn’t do enough to give everyone attention and express appreciation.  I was really, and still am, so touched by their support and love.

One other tidbit from reminiscing – we were worried the wedding would need to be moved because of Hurricane Katrina.  The original projected path had the hurricane hitting the east coast of Florida and continuing across the state and through Orlando.  I prayed and prayed it would go south and it did!  Whew!  The winds on the wedding day were pretty steady which proved to be a problem with my veil.  It was a day or two after the wedding that Louisiana got hit so hard and I’ve always felt guilty that I prayed that hurricane to go there.

Due to our anniversary being on the third day of school we decided to push our anniversary trip off until next month. But we still had to do something fun on the real day so we booked a night at the same hotel we stayed at the night we were married – the Tampa Hyatt. My mom was kind enough to watch the kids and it was helpful to have a little babysitting practice run since she’ll be watching the kids when we’re gone next month. We ate dinner at Bahama Breeze, walked the Causeway, and grabbed dessert at the Cheesecake factory. A lovely evening out! Sadly, Sadie woke up in the middle of the night with a cold and we were woken up by an 8:20 call from Jax’s school saying he was crying and someone needed to come pick him up. My mom went and got him but we decided to head home early. We didn’t want my mom to be around the germs and we wanted to talk to Jax. We actually ended up bringing the kids back to the hotel with us. I laid by the pool and they watched TV in the room with Ben.