Yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. (The picture is from sometime in the summer of 1998.) In August we had been together for ten years. Ten years... and I'm not thirty until June. I was thinking about how I've spent a third of my life with Ryan - and that time will only grow. By the time I'm 36 or 37 we'll have been together for half of my life... It makes me feel very lucky.

Ryan and I were talking about how much has changed in the last five years. We have our fourth car together, are living in our second house, we've each changed jobs twice, we have a dog and, most importantly, two wonderful children.
We talked about how much work marriage can be - especially when children become such an intregral part in your lives... You get busy, and lost, and found again. But if you want it bad enough, and work hard enough, you end up with (well, we have so far anyway), something so wonderful. Every day I thank God for my life and my marriage. Ryan is constantly surprising me. He is over and over again a better man than I ever dreamed of.