Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A Dozen Years

Ben and I celebrated 12 years of marriage last Saturday, July 17th. We were planning on just staying home Saturday night since both of our parents were unavailable to babysit, but Meilani and Eli seemed to know that we really needed a date, and kept pestering us to find a sitter. Meilani even gave us $20 of her own money with instructions to go see a movie. We went to see "Eclipse" (which we both loved!) and to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Maybe not the most exciting or romantic way to spend an anniversary, but it was perfect and just what we needed! Ben and I laughed out loud through the whole movie. We think we were the only ones in the entire theater who actually read the Twilight books! Dinner was tasty with great conversation. Every year Ben asks me the same question on our anniversary: "So is it what you thought it would be?" My answer is always "no." Ben always responds that we're right on track with the life plan he laid out when he was a kid. There is a song I've heard before that talks about how love grows so intensely through the years of marriage that when thinking back to young love; "it's almost as if it wasn't love before." That couldn't be more true for us. This year has been extremely trial filled for us, yet our love and devotion to each other, and our commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, has helped us to grow even closer, and to endure with joy. Here's to the next dozen years.

The Early Days:

This was taken before Ben and I were even an official couple. He was 18, I was 15. It was cool back then to take pictures with your BFF. None of our family or friends bought our line that "we're just friends." Eventually we realized that happiness is being married to your best friend.

Our engagement picture. Long granny floral frocks were "in" back then . . . I swear!

Coming out of the Oakland Temple after being sealed to one another for "time and all eternity." We were so incredibly happy. We have a bunch of pictures of this moment and we have goofy smiles in every single one!

On top of the temple terrace. We actually climbed up to a rather precarious spot to get this shot (not easy to do in 4 inch heels!). My favorite wedding photo.

3 comments:

April said...

Congratulations! I wish I had been there to babysit for you. You look like a little girl coming out of the temple! And I love the last one too.

Farley Smiles said...

Happy Anniversary! I agree with April, I thought you looked like a little girl! It's so fun to think about you guys going through the same things as us at the same time and maybe the year we celebrate our 20th both of us will actually get to do something big!

Katie said...

Awww...such cute pictures. Happy Anniversary!