Happy 9th Anniversary!

Holy cow. That number has such a substantial sound to it – we were married nine years ago in the LDS Bountiful Temple. We’ve had lots of happy times, some sad times, lots of fun, crazy memories, some frustrations and fights, communication and miscommunication… basically all that you would expect when you are with someone you love for that long. One interesting fact is that we've only lived in three homes - our condo in Utah, and then our condo and house here. We've only moved two times!

Looking back, I think it’s a little nuts that we got married when I was barely 20 years old and Ben was 22. I met Ben while my college roommate was dating one of his friends from California. Ben and a group of guys came over to our apartment to pick up my roommate… Ben’s blue eyes were the first thing I saw when I opened that door! We dated for about 7 months before getting married in December in the middle of our junior year at BYU, on the day after finals.

Here are some of the things I appreciate nine years later about my husband:

• Ben is careful with money, which is a good balance to my tendency to spend money.
• Ben is a great father – our boys LIGHT up the minute he walks in the door after work. He is very helpful and fun with them and they love their time with him.
• He’s great at fixing things and is very resourceful with problems around the house
• Ben is very loving and understanding with me, despite my craziness that often abounds from stress about freelance work or whatever else I have going on.
• He is very intelligent, analytical, and makes decisions very carefully. Sometimes I think he wishes he were faster at responding to a difficult situation, but I am grateful that he thinks things through.

I went through old pictures today and found some of the highlights from our married life together. Below is a recap of some of the fun things we’ve experienced over the last nine years.

These go as far back as 2004, which is when I first had a digital camera. I didn’t have it in me to scan in any of our older pictures. There’s nothing like having your anniversary a week before Christmas!! Oh so busy.

Here we are on a last-minute blitz trip to Boston – it was so, so fun – one of the perks to not having kids early on meant we could do lots of quick getaways:

And I have no idea what this is from, but we look SO young!

We’ve attended Cubs games together:

Bought nine Christmas trees together:

Danced together:

Tried to enjoy the long, snowy, cold, gray Chicago winters:

Drove into Mexico over the border a few times but have never taken a true Mexican vacation:

We’ve hiked in Muir Woods:

We’ve enjoyed Chicago together:

Ben has put up with my countless pictures as I practice my photography skills:

We’ve enjoyed picnics at Ravinia together:

If it wasn’t so stinking cold outside (7 degrees), maybe I would have gone out to the rocks at Northwestern and written you a message like this one (it says Katie You’re SPECIAL STILL). You are special still, Ben :)

We’ve taken road trips together (like this one to Minneapolis):

Spent time in California together with Ben’s family:

We’ve traveled out of the country together (Peru):

And we’ve celebrated every holiday together (like St. Patrick’s Day):

We’ve gone to the lake NUMEROUS times…

And the ocean too:

We’ve seen beautiful sunsets at Door County:

And eaten a good ol’ Wisconsin fish fry:

We’ve celebrated lots of anniversaries in downtown Chicago:

We suffered the misery of infertility and then had the joy of having two sweet boys (the pic below was the Christmas when I was prego w/ Eli):

We enjoyed five years of grad school life as Ben completed his PhD:

Side observation – looking back at these pictures, Eli was emotional even as a 6-week-old… :) (I say this because yesterday he was flipping out at me right and left – holy moly, his age is the crazy EMOTIONAL twos rather than the terrible twos… “NO I don’t want to…! YES – I DO! NO! YES!” he doesn’t know what he wants half the time – but whatever we say is WRONG when he gets in one of those moods)

We survived six years in our condo, living below the loud dog lady and above the crazy lady who did NOT like us. We survived having no assigned street parking and having our car towed and/or ticketed a few times for street cleaning or football games… And we survived having the one allowed window a/c unit, which made summers pretty hot (like it was on Eli’s blessing day).

We’ve attended fabulous parties together, like Ben’s previous employer’s extravaganza on the beach featuring a private concert by BON JOVI! (this was 2-months postpartum after Eli – I don’t love these pictures of myself but oh well):

We’ve enjoyed some crazy baby faces from our boys:

Done lots of self portraits:

Taken our babies out to dinner with us:

Spent many Christmas’s together and with extended family:

Taken pictures on the beach (these were in San Diego):

Driven to the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan:

Celebrated big birthdays (Eli’s 1st and Ben’s 30th) in a big way (and aren’t we SO glad we didn’t buy the white house in the background with the scary basement full of dirt…???):

Performed crazy stunts together, like the human pyramid in our condo at 11 p.m. at night:

Picked lots of apples together:

We’ve tried to get a cute family picture for the holiday card:

We’ve made quick escapes from Chicago winters together, like when we went to Florida:

This is out of order, but we made it through two long, difficult births and recoveries and the first exhausting months of having a new baby around:

Baby Eli:

Baby Charlie:

And here we are today, with so much ahead of us! I love you Ben. Happy anniversary!