Memory lane

Look at us. So young, in love and oblivious. This was the day we got married and both our lives changed forever. Candice acquired Collin’s fierce love of ice cream and Collin took on quite a lot of Candice’s sense of hospitality.

As for the other things we brought into marriage, there aren’t that many. Of course, we had our childhoods, life experiences with our families and all and we don’t want to discount that. We just skipped out on the part where you grow up, move out and make a life on your own. Instead, we did it together. We certainly felt as though we were grown ups when we got married… but we’ve grown so much from what we’ve learned and experienced since then (college, jobs, grad school, parenthood) that those days seem like long ago.

On the other hand, the whole thing feels like it’s gone by in a flash. Probably because we’ve had so much fun together. There’s no way we could count the number of late night trips for ice cream, the hours of singing hymns late into the night, or the number of miles we’ve walked around lakes, college campuses, and neighbourhoods,  discussing everything from spaghetti recipes to our next major move. We did college together as roommates, we did grad school as colleagues, and now we’re doing parenthood as teammates. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done together. That’s the way we like it.

Since our wedding day, we’ve lived in 5 cities: Ada, Waco, Arlington, Ardmore and Cambridge. We’ve earned 4 degrees (come on, number 5!): Fight on East Central Tigers; Hey Bison, Go with Ka Rip; and Sic ‘em, Bears! We’ve lived in 11 homes. We’ve been to 18 weddings and reminisce about our own at each one. There have been 7 funerals, all for loved ones dear to us. We’ve moved across the ocean.  4 nieces and nephews have been born. Between the two of us, we’ve been on 74 plane rides. Want to know the very best thing we’ve done? We had a (sweet, precious, funny) baby boy together. We’ve been married 9 years. We pray that God would be so generous to give us many more years and many more memories together.