(yesterday) happy brithday harry potter! oh and happy one year anniversary!

finding out that we were married on harry potter's birthday (thank you alyssa) only made me love our wedding day more.

so yesterday was the big one year mark for travis and me. and what a wild ride this year has been!


i have heard a lot of single people (and i used to say it, too) say that people rush into marriage. that people should get to know each other better and make sure they know what they're getting in to. well, a year into it, i can honestly say that i don't think a person will ever know exactly what they're getting in to. travis and i had known each other since we were 15 and dated on and off for two years before getting married. i thought we knew each other, but there are things about a person you just don't discover until you are sharing a home, paying bills, deciding who will do what chores and the cooking, and deciding when and if you want to start a family.

the first year of marriage? definitely hard for me. adjusting to living with only one roommate who is gone two to three days of the week was difficult. adjusting to living in a fixer upper construction zone of a house was not a good time. when you're dating and not paying a mortgage, going out on dates is a lot more fun. figuring out how to make ends meet when college tuition and buying a new roof both suck all the money out of the account was a little bit scary. turns out i have a huge fear of having a baby and when travis's side of the family harasses me about kids i get defensive. learning how to balance each other's families was one of the hardest things about the past year for me.

the good news? we did it. we adjusted to living with each other's various habits. we remodeled our house into a place that feels really nice. we learned how to budget and save and cook instead of going out to cafe rio for lunch. we have started figuring out how to balance our extended families while enjoying our own little family. i mean seriously, we had 10 DAMN DOGS living, pooping, and crying in our basement all winter! none of this year was easy! (i told travis i may never forgive him for making me birth his dog roxy all night while he was at the fire department.)

but here we are, still married and loving each other so much more than a year ago when all this started. honestly, it makes me a little worried for what next year may bring, but i kind of think it will only get easier from here. the cliche is that nothing worth having is easy. this hasn't been easy in any way and i'm so happy to have the first year over with.


so what have i learned this year about us? i learned that it's hard to pick a fight with travis because he just laughs the angrier i get. (which in turn, makes me angrier...lol) i learned that we make a really good team when we're doing projects around the house and yard. we're really good at teaching our sunday school class and we are both really good with adolescent punks. :) we're good at training our dog, charlie and when we sit down and create a budget, we stick to it. we're good at taking care of each other when we're sick. travis always knows how to make me feel better about myself. i think i help travis have more confidence in himself, like, he has dance moves none of you would dream he could do! i really have learned that commitment isn't just a word, it's keeping a sarcastic comment to yourself, laughing when you want to yell, supporting his dreams even though it means you have to sleep alone 1/3 of the time, appreciating everything he does for you, and yes, birthing a huge, angry, scary white lab for him. and, it's 100% worth it.


so yes, in our culture, 50% of marriages fail, most of them within the first three years. marriage is a huge change and adjustment that isn't easy, but completely worth it. travis is my best friend, my lover, my partner in crime, and my eternal companion. i'm so thankful for him and for everything he does for me. as it said in his card yesterday, "one year down, 77 more to go!" (our goal is to live to be 100.) oh and i should probably share something else about his card. he made it himself. on the front, he cut out an enormous, ripped, shredded black man's body and glued in on. then inside the card, it says, "maybe if i looked like this without my shirt, our first year would have gone a little more smoothly." ha! love that man. :)

happy one year babe!