A Decade.

Today is our 10 year anniversary.

Wow.  We were clearly too young.  I kid.  Maybe.  I mean we were straight up 20, but it worked and we totally dug each other.  I decided I was going to marry him when I was 15 and 5 years later we made it happen.

Chocolate milk.  Not old enough to drink and I do love me some chocolate milk.  So boom.

At first, when thinking about being married for 10 years, I was all like, “We’re really moving along here.  High-5.”  But the more I thought about it…every anniversary…not just the “big” ones should be celebrated.  Every day, week, month, year…any amount of time married is something to be proud of and celebrated like crazy.  I know I said this recently, but let me say it again…Marriage is not easy.  It takes work.  And honestly, I’m super proud of Josh Kelley and myself.  I’m completely diggin’ the work we’ve put in so far.  It hasn’t always been pretty and definitely not easy…this marriage gig is not for the faint of heart, but boy is it pretty dang amazing.

I mean, I not only love this guy, but I kind of like him too.  He’s stuck around for some crazy times and he’s watched me lose my ever loving mind.  He’s taken a lot of crap.  And he’s done the best he knew how.  We both have.  We work at this thing and we pour into it and we screw it up sometimes too.  It just happens.  But we keep pressing on.  And I really like that about us.

We’ve spent 15 years loving each other.  That is a lot of time.  And there is absolutely not another soul I would have rather rocked out 15 years together with than Josh Kelley.  He’s my favorite, hands down.

We’ve seen good times and hard times and everything in between.  We’ve had fun.  We’ve pissed each other off.  We’ve traveled across oceans…many times.  We’ve lived in college housing and tiny apartments and only one house.  We’ve fished and walked train tracks and canoed and run 1/2 marathons.  We’ve renovated our home and painted every square inch of it.  We’ve slept in a full bed the majority of the time and now we feel so grown up since we finally moved up to a queen.  We’ve eaten a crap ton of cereal between the hours of 10pm and 2am.  We’ve baked saled and yard saled.  We’ve watched far too much baseball and painted way too much furniture.  We’ve done births and deaths.  We’ve experienced true heart aches and seen true miracles.  We’ve watched as God grew our family and knitted us together with 4 other little humans.

We’ve watched God form “us” “me and him” into something truly unique and special.  Something to be cherished.  Something we adore and love more than we ever thought our hearts could even handle.  Heart explosion could happen.

More than anything along the way…along these 10 married years…we’ve made our fair share of mistakes, but we’ve tried.  We’ve tried really, really hard.  And we’ve loved.  We’ve tried to love like Jesus loves.  We didn’t always do it right or well or with good intentions or pure hearts…we’re flawed sinners saved by grace, but we kept trying.  We never quit or gave up on trying to love like Jesus does…loving each other and our neighbors as ourselves.  It’s what we hope is being instilled in each of our kiddos…to love God and others.  To give of yourself for the sake of others.  To love big.

So here’s to Jesus…for putting us two crazy kids together and turning us into a full blown semi big family.  And here’s to Josh Kelley…I kind of like you even after all this time.  You make me laugh in those really hard moments and you give good hugs and scratch my back.  And you love Jesus.  Your heart will always remain the hottest thing about you.  So I think I’ll stick around for another 10.  Love you tons.

Happy Anniversary Day.