10 years ago

10 years ago today was the perfect day. The sun was shining. The wind WASN"T blowing. The morning was cool and crisp. Which was just what I wanted. Only days before it had been 30C. I had knitted a pretty shawl that I had planned to wear with my dress. I had spent hours and hours on it and I would have been devastated(OK maybe not devastated, but somewhat disappointed) if I wouldn't have been able to wear it on that very special day. But the morning was just as I had dreamed it would be. The whole day was perfect. Everything, to my knowledge, went off with out a hitch. Everybody was where they were supposed to be, the flowers were perfect, the cake was gorgeous, everything was perfect. There isn't a thing that I would have wished went differently.

The week that followed was full of adventure. We spent time at a couple of B&B's, a night in a fancy shmancy hotel room, went to three Oilers Hockey games(yes I am the best wife ever), visited hotsprings, explored some of Jasper, and spent a night or two at my brothers place in Edmonton. It was fun and relaxing and adventurous all at the same time.

Daniel was working in Saskatoon at the time, so that is where we started our life together. In a modest basement suite that cost us $400/month all utilities included(except phone) and it was mostly furnished. We rented from a nice elderly lady  named Joyce. Daniel had been renting a room on the main floor previously, and just before we got married her grandson had moved out of the basement suite, so she had left it open for us.

A few days after we arrived in Saskatoon, Daniel received an interesting phone call at work. I had come to Saskatoon not knowing what I was going to do for work. I had a resume already made up but I hadn't yet done any job hunting since I was still working on getting us settled into our new home. My former boss at Bentley Leather's in Lethbridge had taken it upon herself to help me out(which I was unaware of). She had called the district manager of Bentley Leathers in Saskatoon and told her about me and that I was Manager material, she didn't have my home number so she told the district manager that Daniel worked at Jersey City in Midtown plaza mall and she could find me through him. Well it just so happened that they were in need of a new manager starting the very next week at the same mall that Daniel was working at. When all was said and done I had a job in a matter of days without even putting out a single resume.

Our first year of marriage may very well have been our richest. We were living the high life(which is easy to do when your rent is dirt cheap). We ate out when ever we wanted. We went to the movies all of the time. We could easily live on what Daniel was making so nearly all of the money that I made went to paying off my student loans. The result was that we were able to have those student loans paid off in less than 5 years. I can't say that we ever lived the life of the incredibly poor newly weds. We have never had to struggle to buy what we needed. Only now, 10 years later does it feel that money is tight. But of course we have 4 kids that need clothes and food...lots of food.

We have been greatly blessed. I could go on and on about all the amazing things that have happened to us to help get us to where we are. But I think it's just easier to say that the Lord has taken care of us, right from the beginning. Ten years has gone by so fast and yet it seems as thought it has always just been this way. It seems like just yesterday I was standing in the temple beside my best friend Leah drooling over how handsome my new husband looked in his wedding suit as he walked around the corner. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. That he had chosen me, that he loved ME, that HE was MINE forever. Not much has changed. I still drool over him, especially when he is all dressed up in a suit and I still feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

Life is grand!!!