8 GLORIOUS Years!

Thursday we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe huh? We were so young... and now we are so old! Ha! Most of you already know that JW and I met on the internet back in 1998. He lived in Holland at the time and we were fortunate enough to be able to meet each other in person several times and then married in 2001. Since we had to wait on a fiancee' visa, then had 3 months for him to move to the U.S., and then 3 months to get married it would have been hard to plan a wedding! We decided to combine a wedding and honeymoon and go it alone. I was still an undergrad at the time and JW did not have a job lined up in the U.S. so we had to save what little money we had to our names. With help from in-laws we bought flight and hotel package and that was it! We flew to Oahu 3 days after J.W. arrived from Holland (talk about jet lag!). I think the ceremony, including flowers, minister, and photographer cost $50.00. I got my dress for $15.00 and his outfit at Old Navy. We rented a car just one day in Hawaii and that was to drive to the beach we were to be married. Lucky for us it was beautiful and isolated with no one around. We had arrived early since we didn't know exactly where we were driving and had fun taking pictures of each other and got sunburned before the minister even arrived. The ceremony was great although I couldn't stop laughing that the minister called Janwillem "Jan" with an English J sound instead of the dutch Y. Things were said in Hawaiian that we had no idea what they meant- could have been calling us stupid tourists for all we know but hey it was romantic! For us, it was perfect. We longed to be together and there we finally managed to pull it off.

Anyways, as I look back at that day it seems sooooooooooo long ago. Who would have imagined we would live where we live and be lucky enough to have two beautiful children and still have each other. We take it for granted a lot. We try not to bicker over silly things. We try to cooperate to make a happy place for a family to grow and thrive... but marriage is hard sometimes (I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement!). Sometimes I wish it was as easy and simple as it was back then and sometimes I don't. We have wonderful memories of the last 8 years...or as JW put it last month (sarcastically- mind you) "8 GLORIOUS Years!" with a smarmy smile that made us both bust out laughing. I still appreciate having him in my life (even if I forget to show it sometimes) and he is a good daddy to Luke and Charlotte. Let's hope we do what we promised to do and stick together forever!


**Geez did we need tans or what!!!

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