Eleven Years Ago Today

Don’t we look like babies?  Seriously, who lets 15-year-olds get married? 

We were fresh out of college, the first of all our friends to get married.  We were married here in Indy, just one week after graduation.  The next day we went to Gatlinburg for our honeymoon, and then we headed straight to Nashville to start our new life together.  In a few weeks I was to start an internship at Vanderbilt to finish out my microbiology degree.  Mike didn’t have anything lined up – we joked about living in the boxes from our wedding presents.

I imagine there are probably a few people who are surprised that we’ve made it this far.  If you’ve been around us for more than an hour, you’ve surely noticed that we have vastly different personalities.  At Elena’s parent-teacher conference this spring, Mrs. Bowe noted that Elena seemed to be an equal mix between Mike and I.  She said on some days you can see those different qualities within her working seamlessly together . . . and on other days you can see those same qualities going at each other Tyson-Holyfield style.  I think that pretty much describes our life together.  I’ll take the off days along with everything else, because it’s our crazy life, no one else’s, and I love it.  I hope our kids will grow up and appreciate that about us, that we can be so different, and yet be a team and love each other through joy and disappointments.   

And now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go celebrate with my man like it’s 1997.