9 Years of (Mostly) Married Bliss

I can hardly believe that I am typing that today we celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary. It seems like yesterday and an enternity all the same, that we were standing in front of our family and friends, sharing our vows and being connected by a string of spit after our first kiss. (That's a VERY true story, captured by the video in the balcony... :-0).

9 years of marriage. Sometimes I feel like that means we should be experts at this marriage thing. After all, we've had almost a decade of experience of what it looks like to be a Husband and Wife. While we are FAR from experts, we have grown tremendously in this wild ride called marriage. Today Dave surprised me with 9 pages of photos from our last 9 years together. I overheard him telling our son that Mommy & Daddy have shared much together these last 9 years and it's entirely true.

Recently I stumbled upon this blog post and I couldn't agree more with every word. Brooke writes :

"I was writing about love the other day, how it changes over time. How you think it’s supposed to be one thing, and then you think it fails you because it’s something else. Love is funny that way, it can be so fluid, because suddenly it will flourish and becomes the fulfillment of everything, the completion, the water that blurs the paint between the two and makes it a masterpiece."

What a beautiful description of marriage, a watercolor masterpiece, the blending of two separate lives into one. Our paint strokes don't always blend together, our masterpiece is still a work in progress. But everyday another stroke comes together and completes another part of our painting. When we step back to admire our work it's hard not to be impressed at just how far we've come while also being humbled by how far we have to go. There is beauty in the process. Often this is where the art truly lives, not in the completion of the painting but in the journey to uncover it.

Happy Anniversary Babe, as our dear friends say every year for their anniversary, "I'm so glad I hitched my wagon to yours!"

Below are some of our images of our wedding day, captured on film before it was cool :-P