If I'd Known Then...

If I'd known then...

About how marriage would still be different than those eight (almost nine) years of dating...

That it would still be work...

And that there would still be fights...

And there would still be days where I rolled my eyes at you and wanted to say "I told you so"...

...and vice versa, I'm sure...

If I'd known then...

That we would buy a house...

And make more money than we ever had in our lives...

And still not know how we managed to spend it all...

...perchance it was that trip to Italy...

If I'd known then...

That deployment in actuality would suck more than we thought...

And that there were such a thing as "duty"...

And that you would spend the night on the ship the night I went into labor with our first baby...

...and that neither of us can count the separations ahead of us...

If I'd known then...

That we would have two babies under two...

That it would happen before we were even 29...

That parenthood would be its own, exhausting, special kind of craziness...

That I could love you even more than I had before, seeing you hold our children...

...and because you are the one who gave me the gift of motherhood...



Well, if I'd known all of that then...

...I would have flown down the aisle instead of walked.



Happy Anniversary, Husband.

I love you so very much.

Here's to 100 more years of adventure.



Evelyn Rae is 23 months old, Liam is 4 months old

...and, yeah. My heart is pretty damn full these days.