The Big 1.....0! 10 Years of Marriage & Counting ;)

"This day I will marry my friend; the one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love. ~ author unknown"

These were the words on our wedding invitations 10 years ago today. They were the truest words we could think of for our friendship and love. I truly married my best friend that day. We met Spring of 1997... in high-school, I was a Senior and he just a Sophomore. We had casually known each other that year through mutual friends, but it wasn't until March of 97' that we went to a dance together as friends with a group and then started dating shortly after that. High-school sweethearts with our ups and downs. I left high school graduating June of 1997 and went on to a local community college. We continued to date, and spend our summers together. He even moved with me to Eastern Washington when I moved in with a friend briefly the summer of 1998. So after dating/engaged for 4 years we made it official and were married July 14th 2001. Married 10 years and together for 14. As my grandmother says we have passed the 7 year itch so its all down hill from here ;) Lovely Thanks Grandma!

Life hasn't always been so easy as a couple, when I left high-school and he was still in school it was hard. We both went on to meet new people and make new friends, and it was hard to stay apart of each others lives. The best "friend" part I think is what got us through. As we entered adulthood we got our first apartment together and thats when we started working together outside the house. We started working together at Fred Meyers as part of the Relay Crew and then moved into what would be our careers in Property Management. Our first job took us to Everett (which he loved and I hated... the area... not the job haha)  and we worked there very long hours usually 7 days a week, but it set us up for a long term stay in this field and we realized right away we worked well together not only personally, but professionally. Over the years we have learned its hard to work together, you need to leave your work at the door when you come home and you need to leave your home life at the door when you come to work. We planned our wedding from Everett. We knew we wanted to get married down closer to Kent were our family was and we choose Redondo overlooking the water on on the 14th of July 2001.  Classic large Italian family style we honeymooned with my family in Westport....ok not really WITH my family we had a separate locations in which we stayed but since I had people on that side of the family come in from out of town we decided to make a reunion out of our wedding and enjoyed a few days with family and friends at the Ocean while on our honeymoon. It was a lot of fun and on top of it, it just gives us the excuse to have a REAL honeymoon down the road when we are older.

We dont stop and take enough time to remember the details of that day and our journey to get there, our family started that day in July 10 years ago. We grew that family when Wyatt arrived 4 years later November 2005 and then Nash arrived in October 2007. Our family is complete and we are enjoying life together, we enjoy it so much in fact that its hard to go away on vacation right now for our anniversary. However its so important for us to take some time just us to spend together and celebrate. We decided to play tourist without kids for a weekend in Seattle, going to stay at the Hilton, dine at places we wouldn't take the kids.....visit gift shops with lots of breakable items and must importantly just the two of us. Taking time to remember how we got to where we are today. So thats coming up in in a week, really looking forward to it.

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life, my husband, my best friend!