We Beat the Odds

Yesterday Wes and I celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary. It's really hard to believe it was 8 years ago that I was getting ready for one of the best days of my life. I had so much fun planning our wedding and then the actual day, while somewhat of a blur, was all I had hoped for and more. We feel blessed to have found each other and realize at this point we've probably outlasted the national average for most marriages. If you consider the years we dated, we've actually been together for 13 years! Wow, that's over 1/3 of my life! Good thing I love the guy so much or I might have committed hari kari by now.

I've enjoyed reading several other dating, proposal, and wedding stories on various blogs as of late. Because my own proposal puts a smile on my face and warms my heart every time I think of it, I wanted to share it with those of you who haven't heard it. For those of you that have, feel free to skip this part.

Let me briefly set the scene. I lived in an apartment with 2 other girls. One day when I came home from work, there was a post-it note on the front door that said to go directly to my room. I could tell it was Wes' horrific handwriting but I just thought it was some fun game since he knew how much I loved surprises. None of my roommates were home and I had a fleeting thought about how Wes could have gotten in without one of them being there but that thought was overtaken by my excitement. As I walked down the hallway to my room, I could see the door was shut and there was another post-it on the door. It told me to go in and play the recorder on my bed. I believe there was 1 small lamp on, providing just enough light to find my way around the room and the said recorder. The recorder had another note that said "play". I remember laughing out loud at this point for being told to play a tape recorder. Well it was Wes telling me how much he loved me and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I was giddy, nervous, yet still somewhat oblivious to what was going on. At the end of the message it said to go open my closet. I thought the ring would be in there but instead it was Wes! He had been kneeling in my closet, with a suit on, sweating his brains out, while I went on this scavenger hunt he sent me on. He asked me to marry him and as much as I always thought I'd cry, all I could do was smile. I said yes and the calls ensued. The prior day he had gone to my parents house to ask their permission and he said that was by far the hardest part. Not so much hard, just nerve racking. To celebrate, we went to the fine establishment of Lone Star Steakhouse! I wasn't quite the foodie then that I am now. I was too busy staring at my ring to look at the food anyways, so it would have been wasted.

There you have it, my super sweet marriage proposal. That was just the start of our wonderful relationship and hopefully there are many more years to come! I love you, babe!!

I couldn't find any pictures on my computer from our wedding or anything that far back. The furthest back I could find was 2005. Here we are at a friend's wedding in Colorado.

And then here we are today with one special addition to our little family. This is one of the great pictures Denisha took this past weekend.