Steph On The Real

In the spirit of honesty and accountability, I wanted to share my current goals with you. I didn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions, but I do have some goals I’ve been working towards since about November of last year.

Let me begin with a little (and I mean a little) bit of background information. Long story very short, my husband and I went through something pretty traumatic in April of 2018 (more on this in another post), and since then, I have been on a journey of growth and healing. It’s been difficult, especially in the beginning, but I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot in certain areas. Unfortunately, while trying to deal with everything going on, I picked up a few bad habits which have not been so great for my health.

With that being said, it’s time to make some changes. It’s not about being at a certain weight or looking a certain way. I don’t even have a weight goal. It’s about having a healthy relationship with food and being able to enjoy it and not NEED it to make me feel better. It’s about feeling energized and strong. Lastly, it’s about being a good example to my daughters on respecting and taking care of themselves.

In November I decided that it was time to take some serious action. I’ve been working with a nutritionist since then, and although it’s been difficult, I’m learning a lot. I’m learning about giving my body what it needs and being balanced with food. Most importantly, I’m learning that it’s ok if it’s not perfect. If I mess up one meal, I don’t need to mess up the rest of the day….just move on to the next meal as planned. I tend to be an all or nothing person; so, this has been huge for me.

I’ve also been a lot more consistent in the gym and pushing myself harder than I usually do. My nutritionist also sends me workouts, and they are SO hard, but I feel SO GREAT when I get it done.

I purposefully didn’t want to set a weight goal or a size goal because I wanted to focus more on the journey and the improvement along the way. Is my diet perfect, and am I working out every day? Absolutely not! BUT…every time I get a workout in or choose not to eat junk at 10 o’clock at night, I am improving, and I want to celebrate that.

As I said earlier, part of the reason I’m sharing this is for accountability. For example, when I post that I have to complete a 30 minute workout 24 out of 30 days, then I have to get it done! Accountability is so helpful to me. So, I’ll tell you some of the things I’m doing and some of my goals.

Besides making better choices with food, I’m trying to drink half my weight in ounces of water each day and get at least 7 hours of sleep. Sleep is hard for me; I really enjoy staying up late watching a show while everyone else is asleep. Efraim and I are doing a Spartan sprint in April, and I’m thinking it might be awesome to do a trifecta. Still thinking about that one. I want to be able to do an unassisted pull-up by the end of the year, and I want to be able to beat my husband at arm wrestling. He thinks this will never happen, but I’ll keep you posted.

My plan is to keep you guys posted on everything through social media. If you do follow me on IG or Facebook, get ready to see updates. This will help me with the accountability piece and maybe inspire some people along the way.

Thanks for reading!

Well….It’s about time! Sorry to leave you guys hanging on part 2; holiday season was totally nuts for us. In the spirit of honestly, I actually got on here to do a post about my goals for 2020, and that’s when I realized I forgot to post part 2 of our trip…oops.

Boone, NC

If you read part 1 of our road trip, you might remember how we arrived in Chattanooga where there was no running water. Well, we arrived at our cabin in Boone and unloaded the car. We got settled into our beautiful cabin and were ready to enjoy a chill first night in Boone….wrong! Efraim left to get some groceries, and that’s when we learned that a van without all wheel drive does not do well on a gravel driveway with a steep incline. Long story short, the van ended up in a ditch, and we had to get it towed out. Luckily we have AAA, and there was no damage. To our defense, the tow truck driver did say he had been to that specific location multiple times for the same thing….so not really our fault. It wasn’t funny at first, but then we couldn’t help but laugh at how rough our first night at the last two locations was. The tow truck driver was so nice, and he gave us a couple of pointers for going up and down the driveway, and we didn’t have any issues after that.

Downtown Blowing Rock

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Mystery Hill

Mystery Hill was so interesting. There is something called a gravity vortex at this location, and the only word I can think of to describe it at the moment is “trippy”. This gravity vortex causes this crazy gravitational pull in one direction, which is why we could lean so far back without falling and see balls roll upward and water run upward also. It was awesome and weird at the same time. Besides the vortex, there are other fun things to do at this location.

Grandfather Mountain

All I can say is that is you’re in the area, you HAVE to go to Grandfather Mountain.

Linville Falls

The hike to Linville Falls is right by Grandfather Mountain; so, we stopped by on our way back to our cabin.

The Blowing Rock

This was our last day in Boone, and the weather cleared up just in time for us to see The Blowing Rock before we headed to our last stop.

Myrtle Beach, SC

At this point in our road trip, we were heading back towards home, and our stop in Myrtle Beach was a lot more relaxed than the rest of the trip, but it was still so much fun. For the most part, we stayed at our resort and went to the beach or the pool. Fun fact….Myrtle Beach is a great place to find shark teeth. Like a nerd, I researched the best times to find them and what to look for, and I checked tide times to make sure I found some, and I found a bunch. We also played some “pup golf” as Elisa calls it.

St. Augustine, FL

To break up our last leg home, we stopped in St. Augustine to spend one night. We had spent some time here on our last road trip and loved it so much that I think this may become a regular stop on our way home.

If I didn’t say it in my last post, I’ll say it now. This was my favorite family trip to date. We love traveling and experiencing new things as a family, and we got to do just that for two weeks. Also, Efraim is so AMAZING at planning these things. He literally puts together an itinerary for our trips, down to which restaurants we are going to eat at. He’s so good at it that we joke around about him planning trips for families as a side hustle. We’ve already started planning our 2020 road trip, and I think this year’s trip will somehow be even better!

One of our main goals as a family is to create unforgettable experiences together, and one of the major ways we do that is traveling. We have decided that we are going to take a family road trip every year, and we just got home from our trip. Efraim and I both agree that this trip was our favorite trip as a family so far. I wanted to share with you the places we stopped and a little bit of what we did.

Birmingham, AL

We picked up the girls from my parents in Panama City Beach and headed towards Birmingham. To break up the drive a little bit, we stopped at Desoto Caverns in Childersburg, AL. The caverns were amazing, and they have a ton of other activities for the kids on site. The girls got to ride a train, find some gems and walk through a maze.

We spent the next three days walking around the town of Birmingham where we stopped into St. Paul’s Cathedral and an antique bookstore (this stop was for me) and some other super cute little shoppes. Our second night in Birmingham, we took the girls out for a fine dining experience, and we got to meet the chef who signed our menu. On our last day, we took the girls to the Birmingham Art Museum. I would highly recommend this museum if you are in Birmingham. There is an entire area just for kids with different art activities they can do, and there is a scavenger hunt where you have to find different pieces of art throughout the entire museum. We had so much fun here!

Chattanooga, TN

Next stop was Chattanooga, but first, a stop at The Lost Sea to break up the drive. So, this was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The Lost Sea is literally a lake that is underground. The tour starts at the top of the caverns, and you work your way down until you get to the lake, and then you actually get to go out on the lake on a boat. I just could not believe that this whole lake was down there. The water has this beautiful blueish color to it because of all of the limestone, and there are fish down there!

Guys, I feel like I can write a whole post just about Chattanooga, and this part of the trip almost didn’t happen! We timed it so that we would arrive right at dinner time and already knew which restaurant we were going to. However, we got to the restaurant only to find out that they were closed because they didn’t have any running water. “No big deal, we will try another restaurant.” NOPE! The second restaurant was also closed because of no running water. That’s when we started to realize that a lot of places had signs on their doors. After a quick google search, we found out that the whole city of Chattanooga was either under a boil water notice or didn’t have running water. At this point, we were just hungry and tired from being on the road; so, we picked up some food at Publix and headed to our Airbnb. We got to the house, and it looked great, but there was a problem….no water!!!! At this point, it was 8:30; we had been on the road for hours, we hadn’t eaten and we had no running water. Efraim and I started searching for a different place to stay outside of Chattanooga, but we couldn’t find anything. We decided to just stay one night and see what the water situation was the next day, and at four in the morning, we got water! I am SO glad the whole thing worked out because Chattanooga was our favorite stop of the trip!

Tennessee Aquarium

Best aquarium I’ve ever been to!

Tennessee River and Coolidge Park

Rock City

Rock City is an absolute MUST. If I had to pick one thing to do again in Chattanooga, this would be it!

Ruby Falls

Ruby Falls is an underground waterfall, and it was so beautiful.

Sunset Rock Hike

Our family loves to hike while on vacation. I’ve done a TON of hikes growing up, and honestly, this one isn possibly my favorite. It has one of the best views I’ve ever seen. The girls LOVE hiking because of this hike.

This was just part of our trip. In the next post, I will update you on the rest of our trip.

Today was our first day back to school!!! If you didn’t already know, we do homeschool our girls. We’ve chosen to do this for a few reasons, but mostly because we want our girls to be as strange and socially awkward as possible. (Just kidding…obviously) This will be our third year homeschooling, and I am definitely looking forward to this year more than the others. Efraim and I have taken some time to put in writing our “why” for homeschooling and put together a vision and action plan for our family this year. It really helps to keep things in perspective, especially during the challenging times.

Most people are very supportive of our choice to homeschool, but every once in a while, there is the person who gives us a very awkward look when we tell them we homeschool. One of our reasons is because we love the flexibility, both in time and in choosing what and how they learn. We travel A LOT, and it’s awesome to be able to take the girls on trips. Not only do we spend more time together as a family, but we incorporate some parts of our trip into their education. Second, because we homeschool, I can give each child the attention they need. One of my daughters struggles with reading, and I’m able to sit with her one-on-one to help her through it. That is not something she would receive in a traditional school setting. Third, the world view our local schools differs from our world view. A lot of people think this is the main reason most people homeschool, but for us, it is not the main reason. It is so much more than that.

Are there times when I wish my children were in school five days a week so I could have a little more “free time”? Absolutely! I wouldn’t be honest if I said I didn’t want that at times. However, we have chosen this because we do believe it is best for our family, and even though it can be tough at times, I do enjoy it. It is so cool to actually see them making connections and learning new things. I love making school fun for them and making memories together, and I love being an active part of what they are learning. We are looking forward to lots more “Back to School” days at home.

First, I want to thank you guys for reading the last post. I hope that it was helpful and encouraging. If you feel like you have been or are in a similar place, don’t worry, you are not alone. What I want to do is share with you some of the things I have been doing to help. I don’t have it all figured out, but honestly, does anyone ever have it all figured out? I think that as long as we are breathing, there is always room for growth.

First, let’s talk about body image. When I look at my body, do I think there is room for improvement? Yes…and that’s ok. What’s not ok is making negative comments about my own body and ripping apart everything that I “dislike” about it. I think it is possible to want to improve things and also respect and love what we have. There are practical things that can be done also. If I didn’t mention it in my last post, there is a podcast I have been listening too called “It’s Not About the Food”, and there is a whole post about what you can do to feel good in your body RIGHT NOW. If you listen to podcasts, I highly recommend this one. Some of the things mentioned are to stop body checking, unfollow triggering people, wear clothes that feel good and read uplifting, positive books. These are just a few of the things you can do right now. I spent a lot of time following accounts on IG of women that I wanted to look like. At the time, I thought this was good motivation for me, but honestly, all it did was make me compare a lot more and make me feel crappier about my body. Let’s be honest too, a lot of the women we compare ourselves to have taken multiple shots to get the perfect pose in the perfect lighting to put up that picture. Also, a lot, have paid to look that way, not all of them, but a lot. Comparing ourselves to these standards is definitely not productive. I also spent so much time thinking that if I just got to THAT goal, I would be happier and that it would solve a few of my problems, but that was also wrong. Again, I can love myself and be happy NOW and still want to grow and improve.

One of my goals for myself is to post more full-body pictures. If you ask my husband, he will tell you that I will avoid taking pictures all together, and whenever I do have a picture taken, it needs to be approved before posted. That’s 100% the reason I have added these specific pictures, and trust me, I had to search through a lot to find a couple with my whole body.

The FIRST thing I did when I saw the picture above was point out everything I disliked about my body. Instead, I should have looked at what this picture was actually capturing. This was Xaniya’s first Spartan race, and she was having a difficult time with this obstacle. What I should have seen was how strong my daughter is, how persistent she is and how grateful I am to have been able to her accomplish something like this.

Like I said, I am not where I want to be, and I definitely still have my moments, but I am making an intentional effort to stop comparing myself to others and to appreciate, respect and love myself where I’m at now. Finally, please unfollow whoever you need to if that’s an issue, stop comparing yourself to others and respect where you are now while wanting to grow at the same time. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and learning and making a lot of changes, and I can’t wait to share the rest with you guys.

This is probably my most difficult blog post so far because it’s very personal and very honest, and truthfully, slightly embarrassing for me to share. The only people who know these things about me are my husband and my counselor. Honestly, as I am thinking about what to say, I’m having a hard time organizing my thoughts. I’ll try to back up and at least explain how I got to where I’m at now.

Since a very young age, I’ve struggled with my weight (which was actually fine at the time) and my relationship with food. Fast forward about 20 years from when I can remember this starting, and the issues are still there. This is extremely difficult to share, and definitely embarrassing, but I promised I would be very honest, and I’m hoping this may even help someone.

It hasn’t been terrible the whole time. I’ve had some ups and downs, and I’ve had long stretches of time when I thought I was done with this forever. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and I’m currently not in a great place. I can say that I know what caused it. Last year was a very rough year for our family. Within the span of a two months, my husband and I lost our baby boy at 19 weeks gestation, and we each had a parent in the hospital with serious health conditions. It was during all of this that a lot of bad habits started to reappear.

Our lives were so out of whack after everything, and healthy choices were not a priority. For a while, it was just about survival. We started seeing a counselor after all of this happened, and it helped tremendously, but for me, the unhealthy habits have not been as easy to let go of.

This leads me to where I’m at now. I’m not where I want to be physically, not even remotely close, and if this were the only issue, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s what this has led to. Let me start by saying that I am a perfectionist, and I have extremely high expectations, especially of myself. Also, when I do something, I go ALL THE WAY. Keep these two things in mind.

After realizing that I need to get it together, I tried different diets. Because of the way I am, I would do ALL the research and dive right in. It would work for a little while, but then it would go terribly wrong. We travel an insane amount, and when we aren’t traveling, there seems to always be some sort of event or party. Me being me, I would obsess about what I was supposed to or not supposed to eat, and if I deviated from that even the slightest, I would absolutely freak. This obsession and unrealistic expectations led to lots of anxiety and late night binges. I shared this with my counselor, and she told me that I needed to let go a little bit because I was just making it worse by doing so much research and being too unrealistic. Well, I am also very stubborn.

This leads me to the more serious issues. Because I have such high expectations of myself, I am very hard on myself. What’s more concerning than my current weight is the way that I have been treating and speaking to myself for a very long time. I’m just going to be EXTREMELY honest with you about some things. I’ve been weighing myself every day, sometimes more than once, and I will let that number dictate how I feel about myself and how I speak to myself. I will examine myself in a mirror and pick apart everything that I dislike about my appearance, and I will definitely compare the way I look to others. You can imagine what all of this will do to a person’s mind and how much insecurity it will create.

I know this post is kind of a downer, but I felt like it needed to be shared because it’s so huge in my life right now, and because I know I’m not the only one. I know that this is something a lot of people, men and women struggle with, and I want them to know that they are not alone. I also want people to know that there is hope, and it CAN get better. A friend of mine posted about a blog called “It’s Not About the Food”, and it has helped tremendously. Although I do still struggle with the things I mentioned above, they are definitely getting better. In my next post, I will share some of the things I am learning and what I have been doing to improve.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading, and I can’t wait to share more of this journey with you.

On June 1st, Efraim and I left for one of our best trips yet! WE WENT TO MAUI!!! Everything in Maui is just so colorful and bright and looks completely unadulterated! I’ll just post a bunch of pictures so you can see for yourself.

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Every single one of these pictures is completely unfiltered. If you haven’t been to Maui, you should definitely put it on your list of places to go. We will probably go again in the future, and we will be better prepared. For example, watching the sunrise at Haleakala National Park is a MUST, but it requires a reservation in advance, which we did not do. We were able to get into the park and do a couple of the trails but not the sunrise. The other MUST is driving the road to Hana. We were able to do it, but it was very rushed, and we didn’t get to stop or enjoy it as much as we would have liked.

I did lose a couple of toe nails from the 12 mile hike (maybe not our best idea), and it was a bit of a travel nightmare getting home, but it was totally worth it, and I would do it all again.

I will see you again, Maui!

A couple months ago, we celebrated Xaniya’s 6th birthday, and we surprised her by taking her to the pet store and getting her a guinea pig. We actually left the store with two guinea pigs because, apparently, they need a friend or they can get depressed. So, each girl left the store with a guinea pig. Xaniya named her’s Bumble bee, and Elisa named her’s Stort. (No, it’s not Stuart. She was very clear about that.)

Flash forward three weeks. Efraim and I were heading out the door for a two day trip, and I did one last check on the guinea pigs to make sure they had everything they needed. That’s when I noticed that Bumblebee didn’t look good at all. We finally found a vet that would see him, and she confirmed that he was very sick (pneumonia) and that he only had a 50/50 chance to make it if they tried everything they could.

Unfortunately, “everything they could” meant a large dollar amount to attempt to save an animal that cost us about $30 to buy. We told the vet that we would not move forward with the treatment and were fully prepared to euthanize him. Seriously, it’s just a guinea pig, and we only had it for 3 weeks.

Well….As soon as the nurse walked out of the room, I completely broke down. It wasn’t about the guinea pig. I just didn’t know how to tell Xaniya that her pet died without her getting a chance to say goodbye. Also, we had been having some emotional/behavioral issues with her lately, and I didn’t want to add trauma to the situation. Next thing I know, Efraim and I are telling the nurse to basically take “an arm and a leg” to try to save this thing. (The things we do for our kids) We left Bumblebee there feeling optimistic and fully confident in the choice we had made. A couple hours later, we got the call that he didn’t make it. So, in the end, we were still going to have to tell Xaniya that her pet died.

We could have just tried to replace him (nothing wrong with this), and a lot of people probably wondered why we didn’t, but I’ve always been very honest with the girls about everything, and I thought this would be a good opportunity for them to learn how to deal with loss in a healthy way. As we expected, she was devastated when we told her, and it was so difficult to see her so upset. We brought Bumblebee’s body home and gave the girls a chance to say goodbye to him before we buried him. If we could do it over, we would have done everything the same. I think if we shield kids from EVERYTHING, then they don’t learn how to deal with hardships as they come.

Once the girls were ready, we began the search for Stort’s new friend. This cutie pie above is the newest addition to our family. We found her at a local guinea pig rescue, and she is doing great and fitting in so well with Stort. Hopefully we can keep this one alive for much longer…fingers crossed.

Read below if you’re thinking of getting a guinea pig!!!

This whole process has been such a learning experience for my husband and I. The guinea pigs are SUPER cute, the girls love them and I think it’s a great starter pet for young kids to learn some pet responsibilities. However, do ALL the research. I thought I had done enough, but I definitely missed some important things. For example, guinea pigs are not as low maintenance as all of the websites make them sound. Second, in the long run, they are not as cheap. Third, if you do decide to purchase a guinea pig, DO NOT get them from large pet stores. Pet stores sell a lot of sick guinea pigs and also get the gender wrong. In our case, it was both. I kinda feel like a guinea pig pro now; so, if you have questions, please ask.

“Seek justice; encourage the oppressed; defend the cause of the fatherless…” — Isaiah 1:17

Before my husband and I got married, we had talked about adopting. It was something we were both very passionate about; we wanted to provide a home for children who had none.

About a year and a half into our marriage, Efraim comes home and says he wants to talk to me about something. He was at a meeting for work where the Director of Place of Hope spoke about fostering. He shared with me how licensing works and how much of a need there was for it, and honestly, we didn’t really talk about it much before deciding to move forward. We knew that we wanted to help children and that we were able to help, and we didn’t see any reason not to.

We took our class, completed an insane amount of paperwork and had our house checked out by the health department. In May 2013, we officially became foster parents. Since then, we have had seven placements. Each of them has had a different story, and each case has been handled differently, but what they all had in common was that they needed a loving, stable environment, and that’s why we do this.

Questions

The question we get asked the most is, “How do you take care of these kids for so long then give them back?” My answer…”you just do”. It’s not the greatest answer, but it’s the truth. Does it suck? Yes. Isn’t it difficult? Absolutely. Do you ever hear from them again? Not usually. But this is what we foster parents do; it’s what we signed up for.

One of the questions I got asked was, “What is the hardest part of fostering?” The hardest part, honestly, is dealing with the state, for us at least. I will just give you a few examples. Almost every time we have taken in a child, we have had no one contact us for days to give us information. We’ve had a worker show up to pick up a two year old with no car seat, and there has been a complete lack of communication concerning visitations and court hearings. Our most recent issue was the worker trying to force us to do something we aren’t even supposed to do, then writing a note in our file for not doing it.

I always feel like people will never foster after they hear what I have to say. To be completely honest, it is very difficult and, at the very minimum, extremely inconvenient. There have been multiple times where my husband and I have just wanted to be done. But then I get the emails. I hear the stories of these kids, who because of no fault of their own, have been removed from their homes and need a family to love them and take care of them. How can I say no? Now, I’m not saying that fostering is for everyone, because it’s not. I don’t know everyone’s situation. However, I do think that there are people out there who think they can’t, but they can.

I can tell you, my husband and I, we are not super heroes; we are regular people. If you have ever thought about, or been interested in fostering, talk to us; you can ask us anything! Trust me, if we can do it, you can too. If you don’t have any interest in fostering, there are so many ways you can help without taking a child in. If you know a family who fosters, seriously ask them how you can help. Even something as simple as taking them a meal once a week is HUGE!

If you have anymore questions about fostering, please leave a comment below. If you are interested in fostering, let me know, and I can get you in touch with an agency. Lastly, if you are looking for a way to help but not foster, I can get you in touch with someone as well.

“You and Me”, the title of mine and my husband’s song.

I’m about to tell you what I think is one of the greatest love stories of all time. On the real, if they made a movie based on how we met and fell in love, it would be a hit. Fourteen years ago (holy crap), summer of 2005, I was about to go on a mission trip to Brazil when a member of our team dropped out last minute, and his place was taken by this guy I sorta knew named Efraim. While on this trip, we became friends and also found out we were going to the same tiny private college and had 3 classes together (talk about meant to be).

Anyway, first semester we were best friends, together all the time. There were lots of notes back and forth during class, lunches in the cafeteria, weekly movie nights and late nights writing papers together. A lot of people didn’t understand how we were just friends, and to be fair, I see it now, but we really were just best friends.

Second semester is when things started to change. Efraim says I tell a twisted version of the story, but my “version” is purely factual. January 19th, he shows up at my dorm and starts acting “strange”. Let me back up a second. I’m not a very touchy person; so, the whole time we were friends, we never even really hugged. The most contact we had was a special handshake. So, this night, January 19th, we were trying to read for class the next morning, and he kept staring at me. Then, before he left, he hugged me, twice. As soon as he left the dorm, my roommate turned around and asked, “What was that?” My response, “I don’t know, Kate. He’ll be fine tomorrow.” How very wrong I was. The next two weeks were full of “love taps” during class, having me listen to “love” songs he had just discovered, playing with my hair and even holding my hand on the drop of fear at the fair. Let’s also mention the moment he begged the fair worker to let us go one more round on the ferris wheel. These are just a few of the things he did.

While all of this is happening, I am totally clueless. I mean, I noticed he was acting strange, but I did not know why. We had a mutual friend who worked on campus, and she was the one who mentioned the idea of him “looking at me differently”, and she encouraged me to flirt back. In an attempt to do so, I told him his hair looked cool the next time I saw him. Our friend was not pleased with my attempt, stating that that was something she would say to him. I made a couple more attempts to flirt, but I was not very successful at it.

Finally, after two weeks of not knowing what was going on, his mother confronted me. We were at his sister’s bridal shower when his mother asked to talk to me before I left. My husband actually hates this part of the story, because he gets a little embarrassed by it (sorry Hunny), but I am so grateful for it. As I go to leave, his mother walks outside with me and tells me that he IS looking at me differently and encourages me to just be patient with him. With this new knowledge, I went back to my dorm and did a lot of thinking. I was nervous because if this didn’t work out, I could potentially lose my best friend. I also knew that he was someone I couldn’t see not having in my life. He was out of town that weekend with the youth group; so, it gave me a couple of days to think.

A couple days later, I was sitting outside of my dorm reading, and he met me there to go write a paper. He sat directly in front of me at the picnic table, and I started the conversation. I told him that we couldn’t be friends like this forever. We had had this conversation before because I knew that once one of us met someone, our relationship would have to change. He looked down for what seemed like forever then said, “You know I like you right?” I said yes. Then he said, “You’re what I want. Am I what you want?” Obviously I said yes. The date was January 30th, 2006. We’ve been together since, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So many things have changed in the last 13 years; there’s been a lot of life, most of it great, some of it not so great. No matter what, this man is my partner and best friend, and I love him more than ever.

Happy (almost) Anniversary, Hunny! This first post is for you!