Erica,
I absolutely cannot believe we are celebrating eight years of marriage today. Eight years! How the heck did that happen?! It really does seem like just yesterday that I was chasing you trying desperately hard to get you to notice me above anyone else. I had you won over in my mind … you just didn’t know it yet! I couldn’t feel more blessed to call you my wife and to know that you trust me to not only be your loving husband, but the father of our two great kids.
Our anniversary celebrations the last few years have been nothing short of slightly underwhelming. Not that they weren’t full of excitement, joy, celebration and love; we just haven’t quite celebrated in the ‘traditional’ way.
In 2015 we spent our anniversary day mostly apart after signing closing documents on our home sale in AZ and getting behind the wheel of a 26 foot haul towing your car and all of our belongings to a new adventure in Washington. At the time it seemed like a very unromantic way to spend our anniversary, but little did we know at the time how much of a gift that move would really turn out to be.
For 2016 we got to have a little more of a ‘regular’ anniversary celebration, but it sure fell short of our goals years earlier to be back in Hawaii!! But, you introduced me to my new favorite restaurant in Portland that we were able to return to and visit with some of our closest friends and cement those relationships over good food, drinks, and lots of laughter.
This year though – well it still isn’t a trip to Hawaii (let’s move that goal out a couple years, yeah?) – but I can’t think of a greater gift we could give each other. For the last eight years we have always complained about not getting enough time together. We’ve constantly missed each other all day and then felt like our evenings were so short, not leaving enough time to just be together.
But for the last month now, we have been able to spend just about every waking minute together. We’ve been able to make every decision together (and maybe a lot of them made by me in your cute moments of indecisiveness on the big ones like: ‘what should we eat for dinner’ or ‘ what flavor of ice cream do I want?’ We’ve been able to have time just for us together in the mornings over hot coffee. Most importantly though, we’ve put wheels on the dreams we started dreaming years ago. We’ve put wheels on our faith and stepped out in a huge way. It’s scary, terrifying, stressful, and incredibly faith-testing. At the same time, it’s exciting, exhilarating, fulfilling and faith-building.
I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be in the world than with you right now, right here, and in this moment. I can’t wait to see what another year in marriage will bring us and for the exciting new challenges and opportunities we will face together.
I don’t know what’s ahead of us from here. I don’t know whether tomorrow will bring laughter or tears. What I do know is that as much as I promised you eight years ago at the altar before all of our family and friends – I promise that no matter what tomorrow brings, I will still be yours to have and to hold from this day forward, in good times and bad, whether we are flat broke or lavishly blessed, and whether we are sick or in perfect health that I will love and cherish you until the end of our days.
Happy Anniversary Erica. I love you.
To read more of our letters to each other, click here!
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