Though on the blog this picture is blurry...This has to be my favorite picture of Dan and I ever taken! (thanks Kyle) Dan and I started dating May 18 1997. We were married just 9 months later! These have been the fastest 7 years of my life. (after all I am still on that "year off" between high school and college) To me this picture is the one picture that you can see a true balance of genuine joy, love and peace in our eyes and in one another. It has been quite the road to get here for us. Years of pouring our hearts and souls into the kids in Aloha and starting a family of our own right in the midst of it. When I sit back and think about the events of the last 7 years I fill up with such emotion. Tears of pain, tears of joy and so much laughter! I wouldn't trade any of it for the world! It is so amazing to see how God moves us just in time for what we will be needing. We knew that He was calling us away from Aloha so that we could focus on our kids and our marriage. But we didn't really understand what that meant. After this last year of events I know now that it was so that Dan and I could find each other and become more united than ever before. So much has happened since our move here. The pain of leaving Aloha to hearing my mom battle with the fear of colon cancer. The loss of a great uncle that was dear to the family. My sisters second battle with massive anxiety and then her departure to Australia with her husband and kids for at least two years. A really good friend falling into old addictions and a cousin who sits in jail for over a year being wrongfully accused. The list could go on and on...I know that ultimately I rely on the Lord Jesus for my comfort and my peace while walking alongside these situations but I know that He has given me the gift of my husband to be that physical life to lean on. To talk to, to listen to and eventually lie sobbing in his arms when the hurt of the situations around us overwhelm me so terribly. He brings me back to reality when I am lost and always leads me back to the promises of God when I am hopeless. God knew that I had a very serious and quiet heart and I know that is one of the reasons that He brought me Dan. In those times when I let heartache take over there isn't anyone who can fill me with laughter like him. I love him more today than I ever thought imaginable and I long to see what we will become in all the years ahead. I couldn't walk this life without you Dan. I love you!