Saturday June 29th: A Day Worthy of Celebration for 2 Distinctly Different Reasons

I'll just go ahead and get right to the main point from the get go, because I'm so darn excited about it.  This Saturday, June 29th, 2013, Brian and I finally reached the place where we had been in a relationship with each other longer than I had ever been in a relationship with anyone else.  See, I had this mega longterm boyfriend in college. We started dating the very beginning of our freshman year, Sept. 1, 2000.  Then 5 years, 3 months, and 2 weeks later we broke up. Of course lots of things happened in those 5+ years, but thats not the point of this post. And if you must know, it was I who broke up with him.

Brian and I went on our first date on March 14, 2008. We saw a movie in downtown Athens at the little artsy theater called Cine. He took me to see There Will Be Blood.

(Can you think of a worse first-date movie? I'd love to hear if you can.)

Just about the least date-like movie EVER. But to call it fair, I didn't even realize it was a date until he reached out and grabbed my hand during the movie (and my first thought was, "Man! He has balls!" haha) and he felt like he had some maturity and seriousness to prove to me since I was (and still am in fact) just under a month shy of being 5 years older than he is.  Ours was a quickly developing love, and neither of us discussed it at the time, but we later found out that we both knew we would marry one another by the end of the weekend after our first date. Lemme tell ya, after 5 years of dating someone before and never having that kind of a certain feeling, it was so thrilling to finally know.

Brian and I got engaged on August 5th, 2008, not quite 5 months after we started dating, and married on December 13th, 2008, one day shy of 9 months since our first date.

(Look at us hotties on our honeymoon on a boat in the Sydney Harbor!)

Now to be honest, I'm not much of a person for dates. I've had to go back and look up old calendars online a number of times to figure out what the exact day was for many of these dates in my personal history, but I remember doing this early on in my relationship with Brian because it seemed like it would take half of forever for us to get to the place where ours became the longest relationship of my life. And I had been looking forward to mid summer 2013 ever since!

In the span of this 5 years, 3 months, and two weeks of being with Brian we have: dated, got engaged, married, honeymooned in Australia, had two dogs, two kids, bought a house, traveled to Germany, London, the Dominican Republic, weathered two different bouts of extreme and longterm illness, and each had a couple of different jobs. A LOT has gone down in this time span! And I am so thankful. I could not have been paired with a more wonderful man for me than Brian Davis. Thank you Jesus for walking with me through to this very day and providing me with a husband beyond my wildest hopes and dreams and a father for our children who has exceeded every single expectation and wish!

Oh, and the other reason to celebrate on Saturday? Well, now that I've gone and typed all that out, I feel like it pales in comparison, but Saturday was also the day that Lorien finally FINALLY started to poop in the potty all by herself.

(We had no idea...)

Girly has been pee pee potty trained since February, but held out until Saturday when mama had finally had enough and busted out the suppositories to get her to go in the toilet instead of her pull-ups at night or nap time. And since Lorien is awesome, albeit a bit slow on the uptake with that one, she also started staying dry during her nap time, and we were able to ditch the pull-ups. Now she is only in pull-ups at night, and only going poop in the potty. I cannot tell you how much that thrills me, and how much I could not have ever related to that kind of thrilling before the past 4+ months of cleaning up poop for a theoretically potty trained child.

All that to say, can you guess which milestone actually ended up being celebrated on Saturday?! You guessed it.  Lorien's big girl poops in the potty celebration dinner and frozen yogurt extravaganza. Why you ask? Because you see, I forgot until today that our landmark milestone we've been looking forward to in our relationship for over 5 years had actually taken place on Saturday, and wasn't still a few days away.

Bummer.  I'll just have to blame it on the no-more-poo-poo-pants-euphoria and chalk it up to par for the course in this beautiful season of life with littles.

Happy More Years with the Hubs than Anyone Else to me! And Happy No More Poop Pants to me too!

Climbing Back in the Saddle. So to Speak.

So. I'm back, after an extended absence. Hopefully this time blogging is something that will stick with me a bit better.  I really think I'll enjoy writing, chronicling, and perhaps even eventually building some sort of community through my blog.  So here's to attempt number 2!

At first, I had a legitimately good reason for skipping bloggy town for so long.  In early October, my thyroid went nuts again, and it took a few months to realize exactly what was going on, and then get an appointment to see a specialist on the books.  Being so sick with a 2 year old and a baby was the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life, and I am so thankful to my hubby for helping keep our family afloat while I was unable to do hardly anything (including even carrying my own baby at times) for a few months. With a new doctor who discovered my initial misdiagnosis after Lorien was born, a correct diagnosis, and some new drugs, I was back to myself by mid February. So that was about 4 months of being out of commission. Like didn't leave the house for weeks at a time, not even to go to the grocery store, not even for Christmas holiday fun kind of out of commission. I was in no position to do anything, and that, unfortunately, included blogging.

After that, the time off just seemed so long, it started to seem too awkward to pick back up and write.  Lots has happened since then.  Where do I even start?! Well, I don't really know the answer to that, but I'm back anyway....

By mid February, my husband, Brian, was off on a series of international trips as a photographer/videographer for our business that we run, and I was so busy being home for weeks at a time with our kiddos, that I didn't think to make time to reinstate myself on this ole blog of mine. He went to Ethiopia for two weeks in February, and then Australia/Indonesia/Bali for three weeks in May/June. And that was all preceded by a week in London in mid October. He has had some amazing opportunities, and I am so glad he got to go. And I'd do it all over again. But my gaash, I had no idea how hard all those weeks alone with two small kids could be! I got very busy inviting family and friends to come visit for a few days here and there, or even to stay a week or so at a time.  We even took a trip to Alabama to visit some of my family for a few days over Brighton's 1st birthday since daddy was gone then.

Now that Brian has been back for a few weeks, and isn't planning any more trips this year, I have somehow felt like I have more time to breathe, write, think. I know this isn't actually true. But it feels that way, so I've been thinking about this blog. And I hope once I get through this first post back, I'll be more inspired to write. And learn how to post pictures well, etc.

In addition to the many changes that have come with the growth and development of my littles in the past year, I feel that there is much stirring and changing inside of me as well. Looking forward to including that on here too.