Do you remember the day?

Howard,

Do you remember the day? It was hot. Like 107 hot. The days before were sheer chaos. Brandon in the hospital. Mom and the bird dress (o: The cake lady was MIA. My unaltered dress was locked in the seamstresses house while she was away with a family emergency. The slide show wasn't ready and UPS was on strike. No balloons, no flowers, no tuxedo's. It was all on a loading dock in no-man's-land.

Do you remember the day? Brandon was released from the hospital with his arm in a cast 1 hr before it started, still dirty from the car crash. The cake lady came after I walked down the isle and magically threw the cake together. The balloons and flowers were re-shiped and the tuxedos came in that morning. None of them fitting correctly. The flowers were sent to the wrong place and the photography wasn't what we asked for.

Do you remember the day? My dress fit perfectly. You looked perfect and nervous all at once. Dad messed up the words in his song and I sang to you in front of 350 people without crying. We said "I do" and left the church. Not one indication of the chaos leading up to the big day. (except for our best man wearing a cast and sitting on a stool, still slightly dizzy)

We had no money for our honeymoon, so we opened all the cards in the backseat of our getaway car and took the checks to the bank before hitting the road. We ate dinner in our wedding clothes... and a couple next to us celebrating their anniversary sent us the flowers from their table.

Do you remember the day? The day we became us. I was 18. You were 19. We were kids who knew we loved each other.

From "I do" to " we still are", look at how far we have come and how far we have to go.

We've owned 3 homes. Our first only $97,000. The next we stripped to almost nothing and rebuilt with our own hands. The third we helped build new and then gave up for the oportunity of a college eduaction for you, leaving behind so many good memories in those 4 walls we called our home.

We have three beautiful boys who run us ragged, make us laugh til our sides hurt, are always hungry and often rowdy.

We have had a child so close to death, and now our miracle is almost 4. Oh the doctor bills!

We've consoled each other during the deaths of close friends.

We have celebrated winning high school basketball games that you have coached. And winning kids that you have helped with your natural talent of teaching and coaching.

We have bought groceries with loose change from the couch and glass jar.

We have given so much to help others.

We have had some major fights without the kids even knowing.

We have grown up together.

No, it for sure hasn't all been easy.

The last 3 years being some of the toughest, still with some bumps in the road on the horizon.

Often times with a smile on our face and a lump in our throat, we press on.

Hopefully better and not bitter.

As we have walked this road together, sometimes in companionable silence,

I have enjoyed you.

I appreciate you and love you.

If the first 12 years are any indication, the next 12 should be even better.

Happy Anniversary, a few days late. (It's how we roll).

Mandy