Anniversary

Today is Chad and I's 9th anniversasry! We've been apart for a couple of them. Our 1st anniversary I was 4 days from giving birth to our beautiful Jordyn. We drove around Manhattan (KS), looking at beautiful lake front homes, we parked at the lake and sat there and talked about how amazing the 1st yr of marriage had been, with pretty typical 1st yr hardships of living with this sometimes alien, yet loving them still. We were excited about the upcoming birth of our daughter, and honestly I was feeling pretty miserable being 2 days over due and just ready to have her!

Our 2nd anniversary was spent in a German hospital, just 2 days after our little girl had been dx with leukemia. I know Chad got me a card, and although I'm sure I had bought him at least a card, I know I didn't have it at the hospital with me and since I didn't leave the hospital for a few weeks,  I doubt he ever got even a card that year. Our 3rd anniversary we'd been told just 16 days before that the FDA study we'd hoped Jordyn would be put on, had been taken away from her...so we were looking at the future of our 1st and at that time only child dying. Our 4th we'd become parents again this time to a beautiful little boy, Jacob. Our 5th anniversary we went out for dinner, although I can't recall if we had Jacob with us or a friend watched him! Our 6th anniversary I was once again pregnant, this time with  Jackson and we were preparing to move to a 3 bedroom home from our 2 bedroom. Our 7th anniversary Chad was in Iraq. Our 8th anniversary I'm trying to remember what we did last yr (sad that I can't even remember!) and here we are to 9 yrs. He's in Iraq I'm here in Germany. One thing I know though is that we've been through a lot in 9yrs, more than a lot of people, and I feel our love is stronger than it's ever been. I'm so t hankful for this man who saw me dancing one night, who I completely blew off, who knew he liked what he saw and instead of pressuring me, he was there for me when my heart got broken, he became one of my best friends quickly and knew so much about me, that when I finally woke up and saw what a GREAT guy who was crazy about me was standing right in front of me just waiting patiently for me to get it! We started dating in November of '96 and we married 4 1/2 months later. Almost as soon as we began dating we both knew we'd be getting married and it just seemed pointless to wait!

I'm beyond blessed with Chad and so thankful God brought him intomy life!