5 years!

On the 17^th, Dan and I celebrated our 5^th wedding anniversary! Time goes by so fast, but at the same time, a lot has changed since Dan and I got married…as it should J. Every anniversary year, I try and pick out about 10 photos that represent our year…what we did, big trips or events, etc, and keep them in a file to reminisce through.

So I decided to share some of the major turning points for us in the past 5 years. It’s pretty hard to pick only a few photos, but if you know us, you know how significant some of these things are.

For example, 6 months into our married life Dan joined the Coast Guard. 

Even though it took us literally across the country (Florida!) and Dan had a ridiculous amount of responsibility, it really helped us become independent and financially secure as a very young couple. In some ways, Florida seems like a big blurry dream…mostly Dan and I had no idea what we were going to do with our lives. I still had no clue that I would ever become a teacher. I don’t think Dan had even heard of PNCA. Weird, how life can change so quickly!

Year 2: We mostly just enjoyed being together. Since Dan and I were apart most of the previous year, it was nice to just relax and spend time together. Living in Florida was pretty easy…we just missed our friends and family like crazy. Like I said…Florida is like a blurry dream.

 Year 3: Serendipitously, we found ourselves moving back to Oregon and finally made some important decisions about our careers (finishing school for the both of us!). One year after working at Target and having no clue about my future plans, I was graduating from Willamette’s School of Ed with a whole lot of goals and direction to my life. Thankfully, after a year of painting and doing an embarrassing amount of relaxing reading, Dan had decided to get his BFA in painting. Ahhh…..big life decisions made: CHECK!

Year 4: We started off our 4th year of marriage perfectly by heading straight to Europe! We had worked hard the year before and we knew the next year was going to be nothing but crazy (and it was!). Living in Wilsonville, we mostly just figured out how to juggle both of us being busy with school and work. All I remember from that year was lesson planning…hmmm, not good. I think all Dan remembers is riding the MAX to school (and maybe the dead body he found…you’ll have to ask us about that one, if you don’t know already!) At least Dan got me sunflowers to celebrate being done with my 1^st year of teaching at Kennedy.

Year 5: This might be my favorite year with Dan so far! J We both feel as though we’ve figured each other out fairly well, and can enjoy being married together.  Now we are just enjoying our time together before we start a family (which, if you’re worried…will happen someday soon…hopefully!J). I’m not sure what it is about buying a house, but as soon as those keys reached our tiny hands, we both felt incredibly more content with life.  We love just reading on the couch together, getting frozen yogurt together, sleeping-in on weekends together, watching our niece and nephew together, watching silly tv shows together, cooking together, doing home improvement projects together…yet we are also perfectly content not being together at all J. Dan can go work in his shop and I can happily stare at my garden. Add in Lily, our puppy and life just works.