storms

Today marks the end of 8 years of seminary. Whoo hoo. Adding the 4 I went that's a lot of early mornings. We still have 2 years left until our 2 year break, then another 10 years

Last night after we got the littles to bed Beloved and J and I started to watch a movie. J abandoned it after an hour and went to bed, and we quickly followed and went to the porch to try and catch some lightning shots. They were elusive.

These two events got me to thinking. Next week is our 11th anniversary and we've passed through a lot of storms and early mornings together.

8 years of early mornings

3 girls getting their drivers licenses

2 moves across the country (I'm being optimistic that this one will happen smoothly)

3 labors, resulting in 3 beautiful babies

4 additional pregnancies resulting in empty arms

potty training

11 April 15th's

2 cars purchased

3 houses sold (again the optimism)

the throw up fest of 2003

a few fender benders

a few disagreements

3 grandparents buried

countless cross country drives with kids

more than a few burnt dinners

some surprise expenses

2 broken bones

3 dogs

a handful of teenage scraps

a bunch of toddler screaming

lots of callings

4015 nights sharing the same bed; 15 of those uninterrupted by a waking child

3 first days of kindergarten (1 more)

2 last first days of school (senior year)

friends moving away

11 years of apologies for Christmas and birthdays :)

and me going over my budget

and immunizations, homework helps, trips to the doctor and the accountant, looking over insurance and weeding the yard (you know, the fun stuff)

our share of heartache and sorrow

...and 11 years later I like him more than when we started. He's smart and kind and hard working (and sometimes kind of annoying)

so here's looking forward to facing more storms, and more mornings together.