Today (Jan 20th) Sam and I are celebrating our 4 year wedding anniversary! My, my how quickly time passes us by. At times I feel like I have known and been with Sam all my life; other times, I feel like the four years have been a blink and we're just starting out on our journey together. As I reflect on our years of wedded bliss, I am filled with inexplicable love, respect, and care for the man in my life. We have surely had our times in the valley, but isn't God's grace and mercy amazing...its usually in those times that we are brought closer together and, most importantly, closer to Him. I am blessed beyond words to be married to a man of such integrity who chases after the Lord with all he's got. If the first four years have been this good, I can't wait to see what the next forty plus hold!!!!
While I must admit there is a big part of me that wishes we had the financial resources to take an amazing anniversary trip each year, that just isn't the case :) So starting back in year one we decided to follow the "traditional" list of anniversary gifts and buy something together that we needed. Here's a run down of our gifts thus far:
1st year - paper...we purchased a much needed printer (which uses lots and lots of paper!)
2nd year - cotton...we bought a new comforter for our bedroom, definitely quality cotton fabric!
3rd year - leather...well, that year we had good intentions. My Bible, which Sam gave me on our wedding day, started to fall apart. Sam thought I should get a new one. We went and shopped around, but when it came time to purchase (and a mandatory trade of my old one since it was defective), I just couldn't part with it. So the intention was there, but we didn't actually get it. And, yes, I'm still using the one that part of Acts is falling out of :)
4th year - This year is fruit and flowers. Not quite sure how creative we'll get on this one. But we'll find out soon enough. We do a little "date night shopping" on our anniversary for the gift. I'll try to remember to post the goods later.