What a ride... Love you!

Do you believe you're destined to be with someone? What about love at first sight? I don't have the answers to these questions. What I do know is that seventeen years ago, Tim became my boyfriend. We were young, so very young, but I felt it deep in my heart that we were meant to be together. My love for him was stronger than anything I had ever felt before. True Love? Perhaps.

My dearest husband,
With each passing year, my love for you has only grown deeper. Thank you for everything that you've given these past 17 years. You have blessed my life in so many ways. You've given me five wonderful children, our oldest named in honor of the friend we lost way too soon.
You've encouraged me to reach for my dreams and achieve my goals. And above all, you've continued to love me each and every day. You mean the world to me!
With love,
Me

We sure have come a long way!!


Christmas 1991

Christmas 1991

Chatter Box

So I realize I've done alot of "chattering" lately after a long string of no posts. :) I guess I was being lazy having writers block.

This weekend was a interesting weekend, to say the least.

Friday, our normal plans were a bust due to weather. Instead we decided we'd celebrate with our friends on their 10th anniversary! Double Digits. Woooo hoo! Congratulations to them...and may you experience many more.

Unfortunately, the weather moved in quickly and took out our power. We (women) came home and rescued the sitter before the kids could freak out. Then Tim ended up on fire calls for the next few hours. Finally about 9:30pm, we had moved the kids to the other couple's house and decided to head to Red Lobster to celebrate. All I can say is the husbands boys were not on their best behavior. The poor waitress (who was a good 20 years older than us) rolled with their hormonal, teenage boy talk chattering and even gave us a few good laughs too! It's a good thing they put us back in the far corner, alone. After a nice very large Strawberry Lobsterita, we headed home. We were still without power with a restoration of 4pm on Saturday.

Saturday, the power came back unexpectedly around 5:30am. We woke up and started getting ready for Jacob's birthday party. The kids had a great time. It was a day filled with ten children, four adults, many laughs, a cake fight, a hose fight (between two moms), burgers, hotdogs, chips, and lots of fluids. And of course, a few pretty bad sunburns even after applying lots of SPF 50 sunscreen. (Needless to say, I ended up buying SPF 70 for now on) The evening ended up bringing more storms but we kept our power. Unfortunately, one of Jacob's guests had to leave early since he wasn't feeling well. He arrived home only to vomit all over! Poor Guy. In the middle of the night, Emilee started throwing up too. I'm pretty sure it was from too much sun mixed with a bit of dehydration.

Sunday was filled with more playing and a few slow-moving adults who were tired from the weekend fun. Errands were run, kids filled the yard, and storms rolled in again in the afternoon causing us to lose power once again. *sigh* We had it back on in the early evening though, thank goodness!

Monday, Jacob was miserable. He had the worst burn I've ever seen on one of my kids. He wasn't blistered or peeling so we kept applying topical sprays and aloe. Nothing seemed to work, he said.

Tuesday, was a good friends 32 birthday! Happy Birthday, Damon! Hope it was a good one. It was also the day another Great-Nephew was born!

Jacob also called home from school again. This time, he said he wanted to come home. He said his skin was falling off. I told him I'd go down and look at it and then decide. Needless to say, he came home. He said some kids were poking at his burn and pushed skin right off. The school put two bandaids on it, which then ended up peeling a huge section of skin off his shoulder, leaving it very raw and sore. I tried several things to help him. Nothing was working. I read up on various treatments via the internet and found that a zinc oxide works well (found in desitin). I remembered when Jonathon was in the RNICU and had a horrible diaper rash that nothing would cure. They called down for this skin paste and I still had it. It had 20% zinc rather than the 11.4% of butt ointment. So, I used that on his shoulders last night along with a cool shower, cool compresses and motrin. This morning, he said it felt better but was still open, oozing and very sore. He had a field trip today so we put no-stick pads on the area and wrapped him up so his shirt wouldn't rub on it today. I hope he does well through the day! So far, no phone calls.

And here we are, Wednesday. The kids have a 1/2 day of school tomorrow and Friday and they are done for the summer.

I'll check in again later, I'm sure. I hope you are all enjoying your week.

To the Love of my Life

Twelve years ago, we took a leap of faith and became Man and Wife. The journey has been amazing as we created memory after sweet memory together. I am simply amazed at where we began and what we have become. May we be blessed with many more years together. I love you, my love. -Me

High School Sweethearts

Sixteen years ago, we were just two high school students who's paths crossed. We knew very little about eachother. However, we did know that we "liked" eachother enough to start "going together." Where we were "going", we really had no clue. We had no idea what our future really held for us sixteen years ago but one thing we knew for certain was that we would be "together forever." Many tried to shatter that dream but we held strong. We shared so many memories. Many good, some bad, some devistating. It sure has been a wild ride, hasn't it?

It was August 14, 1991 when we started "dating." I was 14, you were 16. We spent many hours dreaming about what our future held. The possibilities were endless. We laughed. We loved. We cried. We grew. October 14, 1995, we married.

We were together, finally, as husband and wife. We were so in love that nothing else mattered. Even the fact that we were too young to rent a decent hotel room during our four day drive honeymoon. Afterall, we were able to see great sights as we drove from Michigan, thru the U.P., over into Wisconsin, Minnesota, and back down through Chicago. It didn't matter that we only stopped long enough to use the road side restroom, grab another greasy burger and fries, and continue on until we were too tired to drive any further. It didn't matter that we had to stay in little dirt-dive shacks that stocked pornagrapic tapes in the room instead of extra blankets. It didn't matter that we had a whole $800.00 to spend on our extravagant honeymoon. And it didn't matter that you decided we would head north, but that not one tourist area would be open since it was after Labor Day. Afterall, we were together and we were in love!

We started out as most young couples do with little possessions but a great love. We started our journey in a small but nice two bedroom, third floor, apartment. We created great memories there, including our first child. Soon, we would be proud new homeowners. Our home was tiny, 679 square feet. It was a two bedroom home, perfect for our new family of three. Before we knew it, the years passed by and our family had outgrown our little home. We were now a family of six. We sold our little home and moved all of our worldly possessions into a new home, nearly four times the size of our old one. In time, our new home welcomed yet another addition to our loving family, making us a family of seven.

We've been through so much these past 16 years. I never envisioned our lives to be exactly what they are now, but I was close. I knew I wanted you by my side, forever. I knew I wanted you to be there to parent and raise our precious children. I knew you would be the loving husband and father that you have turned out to be. And I knew that I would love you even more now than I ever did then.

We've come a long way baby!

Happy 16 years together.