Five Years and Counting

This time five years ago, Hubby and I were heading off to our wedding reception.

It really doesn't seem like it could be that long ago. Then again, considering we've been a couple for roughly eight and a half years, it's almost hard to remember a time when we weren't together.

So much has changed in the past five years. Both of us have floundered a bit in our careers. Getting married a matter of months after graduating college, it took us a while to find our footing in that arena. Now he's settled into the private education sector, and I'm finally on a workable path with specific career goals laid out.

When we were married, we'd planned to wait two years before trying for a child. Our girls will be four and two come mid-July. It was a lucky break as it turns out. We wanted two children, and if we'd waited as originally planned, chances are we would have been lucky to have one.

We've been through disappointments and triumphs. Jobs have been lost to budget cuts, and better jobs found. We celebrated my first professional publication and shared the terror for our daughter's welfare when I went into labor two months too soon. We've made new friends together and mourned the loss of loved ones. We've shared the joys of parenting and battled the lows of postpartum depression.

It's the little moments, a shared laugh, a kind gesture, or a swift kick in the rear when needed that make marriage such a wonderful thing. I honestly don't know where I would be today if I'd decided against taking student publications my sophomore year in college. Sure we might have met during one of the brown and black belt classes held by the three combined Alabama Wado-Ryu schools back in the early years of the decade, but would we have talked outside of class? I don't know. I don't think I really want to know.

Thank you, Hubby, for five wonderful years thus far. May we have many more to come.

* The first picture is of our wedding ceremony. The bottom one is a family portrait taken over at my folk's house back in January.