32 YEARS HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

32 years ago today I married my childhood crush, the boy next door.  I can not believe it has been 32 years. Some days it feels like it, some days it doesn't seem possible.

I met Brett for the first time when I was in 5th grade, did you catch that FIFTH grade. He was in the 8th.  His family moved into our neighborhood.  I remember the first time I saw him.  He had these dark brown eyes, and sun bleached blond hair, and he always did this weird flicking thing with his fingers.  I was crazy about him.

We had that little elementary school love thing going on.  Passing notes, do you like me circle yes or no.  He painted our initials on one of the gas tanks in the neighborhood.  I think there was some hand warming in there somewhere.  But, alas he went on to high school and out grew me.  I became just his little sisters friend.

We stayed in touch, because I was his little sisters best friend, we went to church together, and we were in high school together.  Of course I was a freshman and he was a senior, so it wasn't really like we went to the same high school.  He graduated and joined the navy.  And I would write him with all my problems.

Then one day the beginning of my senior year I dropped Tory off at her house on my way to work.  Her brother Greg came out to the car, and said you have to come in just for a minute, and see what I picked up for Mom in St Louis today.  I said I can't I am late for work.  He said it will only take a minute, so I got out and as Tory and I headed up on the porch this strange guy jumped out the door.  This man with dark brown eyes and sun bleached hair.  Greg had picked Brett up at the airport from Guam and he was home on leave for a month.  I had that same reaction as in fifth grade.  I was crazy about him all over again.

We spent a lot of time together that month while he was home.  When it was time for him to leave he was headed  for a base in Memphis for training.  So he would make it home about every 3 or 4 weeks.  We continued to date while he was in Memphis.  From Memphis he headed to San Diego and we knew before he left for San Diego that we were getting married.

I went to San Diego to see him the fall after graduation and we got engaged.  We spend our year engaged apart, I saw him once from September till July when we got married.  Keep in mind those were the days before cell phones, before texts, before face book, before skyping.  Our communication was snail mail letters, and an occasional long distance phone call.  I still have all those letters in a box.

Brett came home a week before our wedding, we got married, and two or three days later we packed up everything we owned in a small car and headed to San Diego.  I was 18 years old.  I will say there were a couple of times on the trip that I remember thinking what have I done. HA

We spent the first 10 months of our marriage in San Diego alone just the two of us.  That was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done, but was probably one of the best things for our marriage.  There was no running home to Mom if we got into a fight.  There was no calling Dad if I had car problems.  We learned to depend on each other, and lean on each other.

Were these past 32 years all fantastic?  No.  Where there problems, and issues, and difficulties, and fights, and stubbornness, and frustration, and tempers, and tantrums, and regrets, and disappointments,  and hormones, and screaming, and name calling, and struggles. YES.  But you know what, I don't think there was ever a time when either one of us ever uttered the word divorce.  There were times when we might have asked "Do you want to leave or do you want me to leave?"  But neither one of us ever used the threat of divorce.  We both believed that was never an option.  There was a confidence and security in knowing that.

Have we been married 32 years because Brett married a great wife? NO.   Have we been married 32 years because I  married a perfect man?  No, but I have been married to a man who almost every day for 32 years has made me laugh about something.  I have been married to a man, that for 32 years, I have watched God shape and mold.  I have watched God mold him into a great husband, a great father, and a great spiritual leader.  I have watched God mold and shape him into a man of great character and integrity, and I have watched God take Brett's servants heart and use it in great ways.

So what is the secret to 32 years?  God working in both our lives, and a man willing to be lead by God.
Ephesians 5:23 "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself it's Savior."

Thank you Brett for the first 32 years I can't wait to see what the next 32 hold.  I LOVE YOU!  Happy Anniversary!!!
Thanks for reading.

Yes those are hats and baby blue tuxes 

COUSINS CONVERGING

Brett and I spent last week in Santa Fe with a group of his family.  The event was called "cousins converging".  Don't you just love the title it says it all.  My husband actually gets kudos, and was a great sport  for going on this trip.  First of all he flew to Albuquerque, and drove to Santa Fe with his wife, his mother, and his sister.  He stayed the weekend in a hotel room with his sister and I.  And he was only one of two guys brave enough to spend the weekend with 11 female family members.  I think by the end of the weekend he had probably had his fill of estrogen.

The weekend was a lot of fun.  Thank you Donna Jean for doing all of the organizing and logistics.  First of all Santa Fe was beautiful.  For some reason I had it in my head it was going to be burning hot.  What was I thinking especially coming from Marion which had record breaking three digit temperatures the whole week before we left.  The weather was perfect low 80's for a high, and 50's at night.  In fact in the evenings we were wrapped up in blankets outside.  The sky was a perfect bright blue with those fluffy, cotton ball white clouds.  You know the kind, that make you wish you could lie down and take a nap on them.

The company was wonderful.  Some of these women I have known for a long time.  Tory and I have been friends since fifth grade, and Brett and I have been married 32 years, so I had crossed paths with most of them at some point and time.  There were a few that I met for the first time.

So, what do 11 women and 2 men do when they get together?  Well since it was mostly women the two most common things, eat and talk and talk and talk.  It was so much fun to sit and listen to family stories.  Stories about all these cousins when they were little, stories about aunts, and uncles and grandparents some who are no longer with us.  It was really fun when they would start a story out with Mom I don't know if you ever knew this or not but one time..........  We spend a couple of  afternoons going into town to the plaza and walking around all the neat shops, checking out the restaurants.  But for the most part we spent our time sitting around this big umbrella table outside in the shade of a big tree.  And it was wonderful.

There is one thing I have come to realize recently in my own family.  That cousins are cousins forever.  No matter how long it has been since you have seen each other, or spent time together you reconnect instantly.  That is because you share a past, a history,  a legacy.  No matter what kind of family you had, you share it.  The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the broken.  It is a link you have that no one can take away. What binds you together are those memories, those stories, they are yours and they can't be taken from you.  Weekends like this are great for renewing that.

So, thank you Tipsword's for letting me be a part of your family, a "hanger-on" and share the weekend.  For letting me hear the stories of all the wonderful, beautiful, strong women  who molded and shaped you.  I wish Brittany could have been there to hear them, to appreciate the legacy of women she comes from.   Deuteronomy 5:10 says "But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands".  May God lavish His love on you for a thousand generations.

Brett and his sister Tory

Brett and I

Brett and his Mamma

Part of the group headed into the Plaza

Those beautiful clouds this one is for you Mom!

Inside a hotel downtown

This is the whole group and how we spent most of the weekend

Three of those beautiful, strong Tipsword women.  Brett's Mom, Aunt Betty Faye, and Cousin Donna Jean 

Besides story telling there were songs as well "The wide mouth  Frog"

Ali singing squash face????

Just more scenery  

Thanks for reading.         

Chance, Coincidence, or Luck

My friend Elaine text me the weekend before her daughters wedding.  She was in just a little bit of a panic.  You see, her and her husband John had done this awesome thing.  When they had Whitney, they each  wrote a letter to her while still in the hospital.  A letter to give to her at some point in her future, telling her what they had hoped, and dreamed for her life.  They decided her wedding was a good point to do that.  The problem, over the years the letter had become misplaced.

The text said, this is it.  I am tearing the house apart this weekend looking for this letter.  I got random text from her over the weekend, telling me about cool things she had come across.  It was kind of a neat walk down memory lane for Elaine.   A chance to reminisce and relive Whitney's life over the years.  She also came across a school project Whitney had written, one where she had to write a letter to her future spouse.  Elaine did come across the letter, and decided to include the letter Whitney had written also.  What a neat legacy to be able to give your daughter on her wedding day.  To be able to show her that on the day she was born you were praying for a Godly life for her.  Wish I had thought of it.  Maybe I can steal it as a future Grandma idea.

When Nick and Whitney returned from their honeymoon, they shared with John and Elaine how much they had loved reading the letters, and how much they appreciated it.  They also shared something really neat.  The letter Whitney had written was dated, and guess what the date was?  Nick's birthday, how awesome is that? God knew when Whitney was writing that letter who she would marry and when his birthday was.  I love when God lets us see those God winks.  Some people would call that luck or chance or pure coincidence.  But I don't serve a God of chance, coincidence or luck.  Psalm 139:16 says "You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every MOMENT was laid out before a single day had passed."  Nothing happens in my life that He didn't already know.  So I love it when those things happen.  It is like God winks and says, check it out, every little detail falls into place in my timing, and I want to share those little secrets with you..

One of those winks happen to me just a few weeks ago.  While Brett and I were traveling three weekends in a row, we listened to Brett's MP3 player, and would try and guess who sang each song.   Brett is so much better at that than I am.  Anyway, I was reading a book. Renee Swope "A Confident Heart," awesome book by the way highly recommend it.  I was reading and in the book she was talking about waking up one morning feeling discouraged, but the night before she had set her alarm to a christian station.  While she was laying there fighting  feeling inadequate, a song came on the radio and she was relaying the words, she said it was a Twila Paris song "God is in Control".  I love Twila Paris, so made a mental note that Monday, I needed to look up that song.   I hadn't gotten two paragraphs down the page when Brett said, who sings this song?  I had been reading so wasn't really paying attention.  I picked up the MP3 player and saw the name Twila Paris. I thought how cool is that, then the name of the song flashed across, you guessed it "God is in Control".  A God wink, not chance, not coincidence, not luck.   


A wink, as if to say, yes this life story is yours but I wrote and created it.  Nothing happens that I don't already know.  There is no chance, no luck, no coincidence, it is all part of a intricate, carefully laid out plan created just for you.  Thank you God that I am not relying on luck, or chance or random coincidences and thank you for those times you wink and remind me of that.
Thanks for reading!