Remember me? I haven't been on here in a LONG time. But I want to keep track of some things, and hopefully catch things up so I can print this out. Even though we all know 2020 has not been our year.
Brandon and I have celebrated 9 years of marriage. Every year when I look back at our wedding pictures I think "I thought I loved you then". But it seems that our relationship has gotten harder and stronger by taking on the challenges that have come.
Brandon has been my rock through Covid. During the beginning of it, I could barely get out of bed I was struggling so much. He would work all day (with sick people who could have had Covid- he was exposed multiple times in the first month) then take care of me and the kids because I couldn't handle it. By now I have accepted that this is my new normal, so I can do laundry or cook again. How do you repay someone for carrying you through their own struggles?
We always joke that the in-laws in our house are the nicest people. But I'm pretty sure it's actually true. I'm glad I married the quiet nice guy from my ward, and that he saw the real me past the Orange County raised, Tuscany living girl. (He has some misgivings about me at first, if you can believe that!)
Even barring the pandemic, we have been through some things that have ended marriages of people I know. But we've learned that the way we handle our struggles can make or break us. That sounds cryptic, but we're good! Just learning to build our Christ like attributes of patience and longsuffering, as a blessing told me.
We've also had a lot of fun! We had our first trip away from the kids (for more than 24 hours) in the beautiful Hotel del Coronado. We got to have a roadtrip to Colorado and Utah, and we got to see 2 of Brandon's siblings get married. There's no better thing than family, in my opinion. We finally feel like we're past the "struggling student" situation financially, and we love knowing that we can now save for the future. Brandon especially loves to tell me how much is saved in each kid's college fund. That is something we've been working toward for years.
We've been talking about our big 10th anniversary trip for about a year already, and we were all set to go to Iceland. Now it doesn't seem like that will happen, but hopefully we can travel SOMEWHERE next year. For now, I'll just love our house, our kids, and the life we've built and worked so hard for.
Happy anniversary, Brandon.
