Ten Years

I've been reflecting on ten years of marriage with Brent (officially on Friday) and some of our highs and lows.  But mostly, I've been thinking of the things that have unexpectedly become our reality.

Ten years ago, I never would have expected...

• Brent and I would love gardening together.  Neither of us had any experience with gardening (the vegetable or flower variety), but we've really enjoyed gradually learning more about it.  One of our favorite things is to walk around Sargent's exploring plants and deciding where our favorite plants could fit into our yard/landscaping.
• Our children to be 6.5 years apart in age.  I knew a family growing up who had three daughters who were each seven years apart in age.  As a teenager, I thought that age gap would be great.  As a married woman, that was not our plan.  We started trying for a second child when Luke was 2.5 years old.  You can do the math...it took a while.  Now that we have our two blessings 6.5 years apart, we love it!  Luke is an amazing big brother to Nora and their age difference has revealed many perks. 
• Brent to be working in banking.  When we were married in 2003, Brent still had one year of school left at Crossroads College to complete his psychology degree.  Throughout the psychology program and his internship with a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist he was very interested in the field.  But, he also realized how wearing it would be on him.  In 2005, while I was pregnant with Luke, he started working at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union as a banker and the rest is history.
• We wouldn't be dog owners.  As soon as we could have a dog where we lived, we "adopted" Cougar from Brent's parents.  Cougar, a yellow lab, had been Brent's dog since middle school and our plan was to take him as our own once we had a place.  We also wanted a puppy to start out our family, so we found Goliath, a mastiff, the month after we moved into our house.  We learned a lot about dog ownership, especially puppy ownership, through our experience with Goliath, and then Kobe, a german shepherd, a few years later.  The main thing we learned:  we are not cut out for dog ownership for many reasons.  Cougar has left this world and Goliath and Kobe both have homes much better suited for them.   We've learned that we prefer raising children;)
• We would be runners.  I should clarify.  Brent is a runner.  I am someone who runs sometimes because I know it's good for me.  The point is, though, that neither of us ever considered that we would choose to run miles without being chased:)  I ran track in high school, but only sprinted and hated running even a mile.  Brent ran a lot playing sports, but again mostly only sprint distances. 

It's interesting to think of what the next decades together (Lord willing) have in store for Brent and I, and I can't wait to discover them with him by my side.