Year Seven of Happily Ever After

Seven years ago Dan and I said, "I do" when we were supposed to, had a party with friends and family, then jetted off to Hawaii. 

Happily Ever After, right? 

Absolutely. And then real life happened, and we learned that Happily Ever After comes in fits and bursts. Happily Ever After has tears and disappointments, and it has heart-bursting joys and miracles. Happily Ever After has never been messier than it was this, our seventh year of marriage. 

First off, I crashed the car.

Yeah, totaled it, actually. I was driving to work with Lana in the backseat and I hit and icy patch and couldn't get the car under control. We ended up upside down in a ditch. We went to the hospital via ambulance. It was scary and awful and I don't recommend it to anyone. But we were fine. Some stitches and soreness, and time monitoring 37-week-in-utero Baby, but we were fine. 

 Then, three weeks later, on the day after Christmas, we became a family of four!

Nora Johanna, our 8 lb. 12 oz. bundle of JOY.

A few weeks later, (because Dan's little pick-up was feeling left-out, I guess) Dan slid off the road into the neighbor's fence.

Baby snuggles helped us all feel better.

Then the Seahawks won the SuperBowl and all seemed right in the world.

We ate too many cupcakes.

And enjoyed some steaks.

Dan kept the driveway plowed through the winter (with help from his valiant assistant).

Then Spring came and we (as tradition dictates) fished at Henry's Lake.

But not before blowing a tire and doing some body damage on the interstate. (Auto issues definitely was a theme of year 7, wasn't it?)

The garden grew and we ate (and ate, and ate) from its bounty.

Lana turned five.

And we again realized that they really do grow so quickly, don't they?

Our sweet cherub, Nora, somehow contracted Whooping Cough.

And we all dutifully took our antibiotics to get this bug out of our house.

(Don't even get Dan or I started on Whooping Cough. Nora is still, four months later, dealing with some of the fall-out from this disease. Trying to get a baby to keep still for puffs from an inhaler isn't fun. And it's really not fun that the baby even needs the inhaler to begin with.)

We went on a week's vacation to McCall, Idaho with my side of the family.

And came back to canning that needed to be done and a garden to tend.

Dan helped with the wheat harvest.

And Lana started Kindergarten.

And while we could have done without all the lows, (crashing cars, and Whooping Cough come to mind) the highs make it all worth it.

This whole Happily-Ever-After Thing isn't always happy, but it is always joyful. By sticking together through the mess, and by meeting challenges together, we're getting through it and doing our best to enjoy the ride. 

Happy Anniversary Dan! Let's make year eight even better, okay?