5 Year Anniversary

Today we celebrate being married 5 years! A lot has happened since 2006, but we're still chuggin' along. The traditional gift for a 5 year wedding anniversary is wood, to symbolize the strength in your relationship. I had big plans ... I went to the local nursery and picked out a snow crab apple tree and was going to have them bring it home and plant it, a surprise of course. We have been talking about planting a tree in our new house, and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity. We have also wanted to start a new prayer tree here, and the trees that came with the house are super big and mature, we can't even reach the branches! Unfortunately, the location where I wanted to put it didn't work out so well, so I had to spill the beans to Ryan and get his opinion on placement. After talking it through, we decided that right now it is an expense we cannot afford. But it was a good idea, right??

Here are some pictures from our wedding. We anticipated a beautiful fall day in the bluffs of La Crosse, WI for our outdoor wedding. To our surprise, it was 30 degrees and had flurries! We've had many comment over the years about how they'll never forget our wedding - I bet it's because they were sitting outside freezing their butts off!

What happened to September?

Yeesh – I can’t believe it’s already the second week in October. Where did September go? Ah yes, the start of a new school semester. This semester I am taking 13 credits, while trying to continue to work at least 20 hours per week. Who said this was going to be easy? Ryan is also in a finance class that pretty much consumes all of his free time, in addition to working on his thesis which needs to be done by December in order to graduate. Ah, graduation. It’s nice to have that to look forward to. Unfortunately I still have a couple of years, but I am well on my way. In the coming months I will have to take my Praxis Exam in order to apply to the School of Education. After spring semester at UW-FdL, I will have an Associate’s Degree with an emphasis in elementary education.

On the adoption front, we don’t have any solid news, but things are happening … so stay tuned!! I had a dream last night that I was walking around holding Akyl and he had his arms wrapped around my neck. I told him I loved him and he said he loved me to. Then I asked in surprise, “You do??” He just hugged me even harder. I can’t wait until we can do that every single day.

Here’s the most recent picture of our little man. While it’s so hard to get these pictures because it means he’s not here, I’m so glad he’s at least having fun ... and he's rockin' the Care Bears t-shirt!