A Decade of Change

 

Jon and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary this summer.

We celebrated by getting married again.  This time, the kids were invited.

 

(Why didn't we have them around last time...it was way more fun with them!)

Jon actually surprised me with the vow renewal (thankfully he gave me 2 days heads up), and Laurel and I decided to make it even more special by coordinating outfits, making paper flowers and setting up a friend to take pictures. 

I wanted to do it on the boat, but salmon season being what it is...the docks are a bit crowded these days.  So instead we picked a quiet spot in the nearby National Forest. (we are very blessed in Alaska to have available to us seemingly unlimited quiet spots)

 

Ten years later I have this to say...if we had stayed on the path we'd started on when we got married, I wouldn't know what it felt like to be amazingly unabashedly and wildly happy.  Back in our old lives things that were important; work, granite counters, good schools, cable TV, air conditioning, neighborhoods.  We would have travelled that path, and we would have been happy...the kind of happy that really means content...which really only means comfortable---but always looking forward to something better. (The kind of life where it feels like there is never enough time to relax and be with your family, and never enough money to do everything you want to.) 

 

Things that are important to us now; family time, adventure, living life to the fullest, accomplishing our wildest dreams.  The path we're on now allows us to do all the things we want to...all the ones we said we'd do someday, but probably wouldn't have.  And we'll get to do it with our kids! 

 

We did move to Alaska. 

We did move onto an awesome houseboat. 

We are planning to travel with our children and explore millions of things we'd never have seen. 

We plan to start a farm from scratch, and hike the Appalachian Trail. 

 

I can't tell you when each of these things will happen, but one by one, they will.  And I know that the man I am married to is all set to do these things with me. 

 

That couple ten years ago would have looked at our life and said, "man, that's awesome...I WISH we could live like that." 

Silly kids, what did they know?