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> 5 years ago I made one of the most important decisions and commitments of my life. I married my best friend. He's one of the strongest most passionate people I know. He's smart, funny, ambitious, hard working and loyal. For 5 years he has challenged me everyday to be a better version of myself. He is still working on me though because I have quite a ways to go! ;) He is incredibly professional and as amazing leadership skills. He is wise beyond his years. He is the best dad I could imagine for my Carson and Hannah. I love to listen to him talk to them both. I love the way he tries to convince Hannah of things and negotiates with Carson.... He usually loses but he always wins more than me. I admire the fact that he not only lets Carson have the TV for his shows but he watches them with him. He can name every character and tell you about them too. When he is watching the kids he is spending time with them not doing dishes or laundry. It's something I know he'll never regret and I hope I can learn to do more of too. He is not perfect but he is amazing. I am very blessed. My kids are blessed. I love him more and more every day.
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> In the past 1,826 days we have experienced many things. Love, Loss, Anger, Passion, Fear, Frustration, Happiness, Sadness, Hope, Peace, Discomfort and so much more. We have made amazing friends. We have lost friends. We have expanded our family.
> We have loved hard. We have fought, we've grown and learned from it. We have made three beautiful babies. We lost our first pregnancy. It was painful but It brought us even closer together. It is something with which I struggled for a long time. Though I miss this baby very much and think of her often, I know I would not have my Carson if we had not had the loss. He is perfect. I could never come close to imagining my life with our him. I would never trade him to escape that pain. With becoming parents comes a huge bucket of emotions and experiences all it's own. So much love, joy, stress, frustration. Mostly love and happiness though. Being a parent has encouraged both personal growth and patience. Our priorities are so different. It is so much more than sleepless nights, feeding, and changing diapers. A hole in our hearts has been filled. Strange because we had never known we were missing anything. Some of our best friends have gotten married, dated, broken up with, lost parents, lost family members, had babies, had major medical scares, moved far away etc. it's crazy how things can change in just a couple years.
> 3 years ago we lost my grandma (while i was pregnant with carson). Last year we lost chases grandma. Those were tough. Then 2 years ago we lost chases mom. nothing can challenge a relationship like an unexpected loss. We miss linda all the time. Its so hard knowing she wont get to watch our kids grow up and that she never met Hannah. It amazes me how much she reminds me of her.
> Our lives have changed drastically. We have grown into young adults. We have grown together as a team and learned a lot along the way. The most important thing we've learned is that we are very blessed. We have great jobs, a beautiful little growing family.
> Life is good.
