16 Years Ago Today...My greatest dream came true!

I married the love of my life and began my Happily Ever After. All of my life I had searched and longed for a man who would love me just for who I was and not how I looked, with weight as an issue, I just couldn't see the reality of it for my life.

Then one day (9-2-89), this beautiful cocky pain in the butt marine walked into my apartment with a blonde bimbo on his arm and my whole world tipped sideways. It has truly never been the same. That first year was lots of ups and downs, I was completely totally "smitten" and even stalked him for a while (according to him, I thought I was being a secret admirer) to no avail. There came a day when finally I chased him long enough that he caught me.

July 10, 1990 we began spending a lot of time together along with another couple that we each were friends with separately but hanging out with them gave us a great excuse to hang out together without him having to admit that he was falling for me.

We were engaged in July of 1991 and married on Leap Day in 1992. I can not imagine one day of my life without him being a part of it. I know that he hasn't always been there, but I don't look back and remember him not being there, he is part of me.

He has always loved me, respected me, showered me with affection and protected me. During a time of fiancial devestation he could have been angry and blamed me, instead he stood with me and we grew stronger. Most importantly during the walk through the fire of infertility and the war that raged inside of me as I went through all the hurt, disappointment and emotional upheaval, he was always there, always a shoulder to cry on, 2 arms to hold me and always a reminder that God is for me and not against me. This man that I proudly call my husband is an amazing wonderful gift and I am forever grateful to my Heavenly Father for bringing him into my life and showing me that I was worthy to be loved for who I am. I could list and name many things he's done for me and with me over the 18 years we've been together but mostly I just wanted to remind myself that on those days when the little quirks are what I see that those things are really so small compared to the BIG things that are important, like that he loves me like my dad loves my mom and that my friends is all this daddy's girl ever wanted.

We have this tradition, he told me on our wedding day that he was only going to have pictures made on our "real" anniversary because we took enough pictures on our wedding day to cover all the years in between. So we had our picture taken last week on the cruise by one of the photographers on board. I also discovered in looking back at the ones we've had done every four years that somehow we've worn red/blue in each one, never intentionally, of course now I'll have to just make that part of the tradition I guess.

The photo at the top of this post is the new one. The layout below is in our wedding album and it has all of the previous anniversary pictures. (It's not a great scan, but you can see the whole red/blue thing.)