Fifth Anniversary

May 22, 2004

I cannot believe five years have gone by!!
HAPPY FIFTH ANNIVERSARY, HONEY!!

We have had an amazing 5 years ~ it is incredible to think of all that we have squeezed into that amount of time, because it has absolutely flown by.

I look at these pictures, or at our wedding video... and then I look around at everything we have become....

We started out as a couple who met on a blind date, thanks to our family and our "arranged marriage," as we like to call it. Our first date was July 1, 2003, and we were engaged just three-and-a-half short months later on October 12, 2003. Seven months later, a couple of weeks after Brad graduated from Medical School at MCG, we were married at First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA. We had a fabulous honeymoon in Kauai, returned to Atlanta to move me to Augusta, and began our lives as husband and wife. Two months later (just a month into Brad's Pediatric residency), while on vacation at the beach, I fell and shattered my wrist, requiring emergency surgery. While in the E.R. waiting to be taken back to the O.R., we found out we were pregnant with Alli Lane.

And thus began our FAMILY.

We have been lucky. We have been extremely blessed.

I think Brad and I both agree that our challenges during our first year of marriage did not center around "living with someone" as so many newly married couples' do. Our challenges were other things: intern year of residency, a very difficult pregnancy requiring hospitalization 6 or 7 times, the death of my precious Meme, buying a new car and a new home, county sewage flooding our new home twice (requiring that we live in a hotel for a month), the birth of a preterm baby, and the list goes on.... But through it all, we clung to each other, and that has been the continued basis for our marital relationship. I will never forget what my mom said on the phone one day, while I was supposed to be on bedrest at the hotel but was instead waiting for people to come work on our damaged new home. While on the phone with her, I answered the other phone, and it was Brad. Mom heard our very brief conversation, and when I got back on the phone with her, she told me that she was amazed ~ even in the midst of all of the crises going on in our lives, she had heard us tell each other we love each other three times in a 2 minute conversation. For those of you who know us, you know that is how we still are. We talk often, about everything, and we tell each other we love each other all the time.

Because we do.

Brad, thank you for the past 5 years. Thank you for the husband and the daddy that you are to our sweet little girls. Thank you for being such a perfect match for me and the perfect compliment to me. Neither of us are perfect, but I continue to know that we are perfect for each other. Thank you for our precious girls, Alli Lane and Boots. Thank you for the promise of spending your life with me.

It all began with a day, but it continues for our lifetimes....

Keith walking me down the aisle

The shoes my Daddy bought me for my Senior Prom are the same that I wore as he walked me down the aisle in spirit.

My Family

Brad's Family

There were two "first dances" that night: Mine and Brad's as husband and wife...

...and Meme's, with my Uncle Wayne. As the daughter and the wife of Baptist ministers, she had never danced before our wedding ~ and she had a blast!

My dance with sweet Papa

The dance floor stayed packed all night!

Brad's KA Friends

A few of my Chi-O Friends

My Vanderbilt Friends

Thank you, God, for all you have given us ~ for all of our blessings, because there are so many!!