I'm your's baby, and you are mine...

*Before reading, open this and listen to You Are Mine.

Ok, so if you read my last post, you already know that my little sister got married last weekend. Let's just say that I have been a crazy emotional wreck over this. First of all, she's my baby sister, and she can't possibly be old enough to get married, right? Secondly, I've been flooded with so many memories of my own wedding, and the various stages of mine and Chris' marriage.

One of the biggest things that always annoys me about weddings are the people that have to make comments all the time about your "last night of freedom" or "ready for the ol' ball and chain?" Those people often sound like jerks because they say things like this in an attempt to be funny, and not to mention, it's incredibly discouraging!

My step-dad is one of these people. Three years ago he gave Chris 'advice' such as "Run!" and told him that he needed to get a number 8 skillet so he could "keep me in line." *Just a note: the skillet comment was just a joke. My step-dad is not a violent person, and has never taken a skillet to my mom, or anyone else for that matter.*

Friday night at my sister's rehearsal, when the preacher asked if anyone had any questions about the ceremony, he asked him "When can I tell Homer to run?" Of course, no one else laughed. If you really want to piss off a bride the night before her wedding, say something like this.

Now, it's not just him that said things like this. It seems like just about everyday leading up to your wedding, someone, sometimes even a stranger will say something of this nature. For most couples, this is not their view of their upcoming marriage at all. They do not think of themselves as being forced into something. They don't think of their wedding bands as shackles. And they certainly don't want to get an image like that in their heads before they even get a chance to experience marriage for themselves.

I love my husband, and I love being married to him. Never once have I felt like I have a chain around one of my ankles, and the other around his. Never once have I felt trapped in my marriage. I love being able to share my daily adventures (and misadventures) with Chris at the end of the day. I love having someone to share responsibility with. I love being able to share my concerns with him, or being able to ask his advice before making decisions. I don't do it because I have to, I do it because I want to. And because it's good for us.

This picture was taken in my Sunfire sitting in the Cabot WalMart parking lot. I worked there the summer we started dating and usually got off at 11PM. Chris would meet me at work and we would pretty much just sit and talk for a couple hours everynight since it took 40 minutes to get from his house to mine and WalMart was right in the middle.

This was September of 2006. We had been dating a few months and decided to play in the rain outside my apartment.


Don't we look awesome?!? This was at my 19th birthday party! Wow... that's hard to believe.



Woohoo! Our wedding day, May 19, 2007. We were cutting the grooms cake. This is my favorite picture from the whole day!



Our honeymoon. I think that this picture was taken on the top deck of our cruise ship in port in Honduras.

Awesome right? May 19, 2008-Our first anniversary. We went back to the same hotel where we spent our wedding night. It's a piece of work... but hey, it's nostalgic!

(I can't find a picture of our 2nd anniversary celebration.)



May 19, 2010- Our third anniversary. We had big plans to go out and eat somewhere fancy-schmancy, but with so many other things going on around the same time (more on that later) we made a drive out to our favorite little diner, the Blue Diamond Cafe & Ice Cream Parlor in Morrilton. We filled up our bellies with cheese fries, burgers, and ice cream and then walked around Petit Jean State Park.

It's so hard for me to wrap my mind around all the things that we have been through since we got married. Things like both of us losing our grandmothers (within 2 months of each other), moving 3 times, totaling cars, buying new ones, losing old friends and making new ones, both of us graduating college (WOOHOO!),

buying a house,

adopting Ethan,




and just being the happiest little family we can be.

Don't get me wrong: we are not without fault. We have disagreements, we get discouraged, we have to reallllly stretch our money sometimes... but when I think about all the things that we have accomplished, all the wonderfully happy moments, all the successes throughout these last 3 years, I want to smack the people who told us to "Run!" or to "enjoy our last night of freedom."

I've never felt more freedom than coming home to a family that I love and truly enjoying myself.