Celebrating Five Years
It’s pretty incredible reaching the five year milestone in our marriage. Actually, it’s just amazing. And it’s exciting to consider all the challenges we have faced, places we have been, and the immense blessings we have been given. One of those is sharing our love between our two familes, giving us all something to celebrate. Then of course seeing that love expand our independent family with the cuddly, intelligent, and always surprising Sara Ellen. She has taught us so much about ourselves, who we are and who we want to become.
Our wedding relfected the best traits. It was beautiful, relaxed, fun, and full of love and meaning. Our honeymoon included time together (even some alone), some with old friends, and some new (though it was really just in the moment). Both events included fun and challenges we worked together to manage. It was just right and not a bad way to spend a bunch of money (we even managed to save some).
Norway was a big beginning to our adventures. We learned to be married with little outside influence or interference. It was hard for me to be away from family for the first time, besides college, and so far besides, but it remains a very special place in our hearts, full of beautiful places and friends. We hope constantly to visit, to see our friends and even more of the stunning country. My pregnancy and Sara Ellen’s birth were truly wonderful, I had a really great experience. But I felt a big need to come back. Sara Ellen’s first plane ride was at three months.
From March 2006 to December 2008 we lived in my parents home. We had so much help in parenting, enjoyed the company of our own parents and siblings as they came and went. Sara Ellen developed great relationships with her grandparents and aunts and uncles as individual as each one. We shared Michael’s high school graduation and college entry, Emily’s college experience and first job, and traveled for three weddings where Sara Ellen charmed friends and family. We experienced separation anxiety when Tim began traveling back to Norway without us for work. We figured out how to survive road trips and getting in time for my dancing (I got great opportunities), exercise (disguised as Chiro Care), Tim’s bell ringing, and our time out for dates (our 1st dinner/movie date was when S was 6 months). We reconnected with old friends and made a few new ones. We hadn’t intended to crash at my parents for so long, and hoped for and wondered when it would be possible to get our own place again.
It was hard to choose a location because work wasn’t taking us anywhere in particular. We finally found a place in Charlottesville that we could afford on tight purse strings that gave us somewhere familiar still in reach of family. I left L’Ecole yet again but also left Calvary and the dancing and ringing we’d done there. We spent that Christmas alone for the very first time. We knew it wasn’t a permenent home but had no idea we would only live there four months! We didn’t make any new friends but did welcome visitors and traveled ourselves for another beautiful family wedding. Making the switch to California and Apple was a hard decision but with a little time it felt like the right next step.
Coming out here has been another series of awesome blessings, and I do mean “awe”some. Tim is busy at a great job at a company he really respects. Sara Ellen and I have both found great friends. We all enjoy the space we have in our new home and the beauty of local landscapes. Tim is getting to know his co-workers with game nights (cards, not like in Oslo), and Sara Ellen and I have been getting back to dancing. It’s hard for me after so many months of nothing but I am determined to be stronger and healthier.
Communication has been the biggest key to success, between me and Tim, and between us and Sara Ellen. Incredible grace and forgiveness has been equally crucial. We are so grateful to reach this time and excited to have an opportunity to properly celebrate. Sara Ellen will experience her first sleepover with a friend (her 1st night away was last summer with grandparents) and Tim and I will visit a new and famously beautiful area for our first getaway in five years!
Please Leave a Comment: