Nine Years as Mrs. Grant . . .

On Thursday my husband and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. While an outing of lunch at Qdoba and a stop at Target isn't necessarily the big romantic experience we had originally planned, we made the most of it and are thankful that we were able to get out at all after the recent string of illness. Despite the casual tone of the day, it was still special. The sunny blue skies and cool air were reminiscent of our wedding day in Charlotte, North Carolina, despite the fact that the date was 9 years later and we are now near Seattle. None of our other anniversaries have had that particular spectacular memory connection.

It was fun to pull out the wedding album and share the story of our wedding day with the kids. They knew who a good number of people were, but they were all significantly younger than how they know them now (most apparent in the pictures of their aunts who were in their early teens at the time!). We also enjoyed remembering those family members and friends who were there that have now passed on, treasuring their time with us.

As much as we are the same people we were when we married, nine years has a profound affect on personal development and life experience. I'm pretty sure my husband would agree that while our lives are definitely more stressful now than they were then, that we have grown in ways we never could have imagined then and that our challenges have brought us closer to one another.

I leave you with a list of 9 highlights from our years together . . . in relative chronological order:

1. Celebrating our engagement date every year and the 19th of EVERY MONTH since our wedding on February 19, 2000.

2. Purchasing and renovating our first house together

3. Taking up the sport of running (which transformed me in more ways than I even realize now)

4. The birth of our son

5. Moving our family from the East Coast to the West Coast

6. Landscaping and re-landscaping and re-landscaping our back yard (it is in a constant state of upheaval, which isn't always a bad thing)

7. Purchasing our pop-up camper and putting it to good use

8. The birth of our daughter

9. The decision to publish my book (I never would have OR could have done it without him)

I'd do it all over again and look forward to seeing what we'll add to the list.