Four Years Down...

Remember when you began high school??? It was freshman year and senior year seemed SOOOO far away??? And at some point we all thought, "WOW! This is gonna be a LONG four years!" And looking back at graduation, those four years DID seem long! You changed so much, got in trouble, got outta trouble, had your heart broken, lost friends, made friends, maybe did some homework along the way, just to start ANOTHER four years of college.

College seemed like an eternity as well, on paper at least. During those four years (longer for those smart ones like myself who knew four years wasn't enough) you again changed so much! You got in trouble, got outta trouble, had your heart broken, made new friends, lost friends, made some money, spent all that money at the bar and again, maybe did some homework along the way. Looking back on college, (at least what you can remember) those four years also seemed SO long.

Now at what point did four years start going so FAST? Because now I'm looking back on the last four years of my life...

Today is my four year anniversary, I mean OUR anniversary... (sorry Josh, I know you're a part of this too!) and the past four years have gone SO fast! We have changed so much, AGAIN, we got into some trouble, got outta that trouble, we have had our hearts broken, lost friends, made friends, made some money, spent all that money at the bar and EVEN did homework along the way. Not much has changed.... YEA RIGHT! We have lived in Oklahoma City with one dog, Shawnee with two dogs, added a baby, moved to Houston, removed a dog, and are just over a month away from adding another baby. We have changed jobs, gotten promotions, quit jobs, traveled all around, bought a lake home, sold a lake home, lost loved ones, dealt with divorce, had a few fights, had a lot of fun and shared so much as we have traveled this path together.

Josh and I have been traveling similar paths for a lot longer than four years. We first met when I was 17 and he was 19 (1997) at Dwight Mission, our summer camp we both grew up at. A couple summers later we were on staff together, then neighbors in college. SO, we traveled the same path to the bar every Thursday nights, we were in the same line of work throughout college, we both BARELY made it through college, we moved away from each other, but somehow found each other at the same place in life at Purdue University the summer of 04. Just getting out of a relationship myself, I was VERY hesitant to jump right into things with Josh, and as he constantly reminds me, I did up and go to the lake while he was visiting OKC one time, but then once again, the next day at White Water, there we were at the same place. And have been there since.

I am not trying to make things sound like they have been perfect, we've had our fights, our doubts, our tears. But in the end, we are always here in the same place, wanting the same things.

Becoming parents has been the most uniting thing we have ever experienced. I am so lucky to have a husband who WANTS to be an involved father. Our idea of a fun weekend has changed from back porches and cold beer to zoos and ice cream and we just LOVE it. We are so excited for all the fun times we have to come as parents.

But what I think has been the best thing about the parenting experience is that we have kept our relationship first. We know that we parents, but not JUST mom or dad. We understand that for us to be a good family we have to focus on what made us a family in the first place, Josh and I, our friendship and our love. Though kids DO make it harder to get out and play together, we have set up our life as best as possible to have time daily to just be Kendall and Josh. Every night, C goes down at 7 and we have our time. It's lame, but it's ours. Though leaving family and babysitters has made it hard to have date nights, when we DO, we make the best out of it. But when we have to take Carson along, it's ok. Because we love our little family.

This anniversary is going to be filled with Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice and American Idol, which is lame, but next week, we will celebrate with Toby Keith at Rodeo Houston. And next year, we will be fulfilling our promise we made on our honeymoon, to return in five years, with NO kids. So, I'm cool with lame nights and delayed celebrations, because we will have fun during it all!

And MAYBE, just MAYBE, we will get to see our wedding video that we've been waiting four years to see....