Monday, September 11, 2006

11 Years And Counting

My husband and I recently celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. Wow. 11 years! Our wedding day seems like a long time ago but it doesn't seem possible that we've been married 11 years. Here are some of our highlights of 11 years in the making.

We both started out working evenings, D as a welder and me as an RN on a Psych ward.

We took a trip to the east coast driving and touring as we went over a 2 week period.

After one year of marriage, we bought our home

We got our first pet, a greyhound we named Lucy, the day we moved into our new house.

3 years after we got married, we had our first child, our son.

6 months after our son was born, I had major surgery which left me disabled. Since my husband had to work and his family wouldn't help take care of our son during the day, our son had to live with my family over an hour away during the week. After weeks in the hospital, I recovered from surgery at my parents (my mom took off work to take care of me). D visited our son and I on weekends. After 2 months, I was able to get up enough to go to therapy. I had to leave my son at my parent's while I moved back home to start my therapy. Our son came home on weekends. D took care of me during the week and took care of me and our son on the weekends. It was a very difficult time.

Also during this time, D was diagnosed with sleep apnea.

Just before our son turned 1, we were able to set things up for me to care for him most of the week, with a hired sitter helping out twice a week. Our son moved back home permenantly after almost 6 months. 6 weeks later we celebrated our 4th anniversary.

Midway thru our 4th year, I became pregnant with our 2nd child, our daughter. Since this was a virtual near impossibility, we were shocked to say the least. I continued to take home pregnancy tests well after my first doctors visit and didn't stop until after the first ultrasound. We believe without a shadow of a doubt that our daughter was an act of God (so to speak) and something He intended for our lives.

One month to the day after our 5th anniversary, our daughter was born without complications, despite doctors beliefs that it would be otherwise.

One month after our daughter was born, my husband visited the doctor to make sure no more such surprises would arise. :<)

The summer after our 6th anniversary, we started hosting Gem's players.

Our 7th year went fairly smooth, marred only by my father's diagnosis of Prostate cancer followed by successful surgery to remove the cancer.

2 months after our 8th anniversary, my brother died of Pancreatic Cancer after an 11 week struggle with the disease.

The summer after our 8th anniversary, we traveled with D's parents and sister's family to Florida to Disney World for a Disney vacation.

Our 9th anniversary passed quietly.

Near the end of our 10th anniversary, our son celebrated his 8th birthday. 8 years!

That brings us to number 11. What a go. D is 36 and I am 33. Our son is 8 and our daughter will soon be 6. 11 years behind us and, God willing, many more ahead.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

A Loss To The Animal Kingdom

I'm not a big TV personality person but Steve Irwin's (aka The Crocodile Hunter) death was a blow that took my breath away. I don't think he sought out the fame, I think fame found him. He in turn used his fame to help the animals he was so passionate about.

He was so entertaining. My kids liked to watch him. Heck, I liked to watch him. It never came across like he was acting for the sake of an audience. To me, it seemed more like his flamboyant personality was just, well, who he was.

His poor family. How heartbreaking. His loss is far more than just the loss of a TV personality. He really did something, was about something. And filmology simply captured it and showed it to the world.