Love of a Lifetime

With Valentine's Day coming up, I have been reflecting on my relationship with Chad. I realize just how lucky I am to have found my TRUE LOVE so young. So many of our friends were skeptical. They all thought that because we married so young that we would never last. I think Chad and I both knew early on in our relationship that we were meant to be together. So....today's blog is just a quick journey through the 13 years that Chad and I have spent together. The songs that are now on our blog are songs that either have some significance to our relationship or that make me think of Chad. For example the song "For the First Time" is the song Chad and I had our first dance to at our wedding (our first dance ever), "Your Still the One" is a song that was playing when we drove into Arizona for the very first time. The song made me think of how crazy our lives had been until that point and I think that it was the first time I realized that I was growing to love this man that I had married more and more every day. Every time I hear the song "Lucky" I think of how I am truly blessed to have married my very bestfriend. Finally, "Head Over Feet" always makes me think of Chad he has always called me his PRINCESS. I used to listen to this song all the time when we were first dating...

Chad and I met at the University of New Mexico, on campus, with 30,000 other college students. He happened to walk by a bench I was sitting on and that is how it all began.

This is a picture of us at 18 & 20 years old. Chad wasn't sure that he was going to call and ask me out until he heard my last name and realized that we had something we could talk about. That one thing was my brother. Who would have guessed that 9 years after my brother was killed that I would meet someone who knew him and that HE (my brother) would bring us together. We quickly found out that we had gone to all the same schools since kindergarten, but we never met until college.

By our second date, we decided not to see other people. It was only about 3 months later that Chad flew me to Minnesota to meet his sister, and only about a month later that I realized that Chad was in this forever...

One night we were driving home from a date and he randomly started to laugh. When I asked him what he was laughing at he just looked at me and said "I just think it is funny that I am sitting next to my wife". I was shocked that he felt that way so early in our relationship and VERY glad because I felt the same way.

So even after all of these years, we are still going strong. Chad may not be the most romantic guy I have ever met. He doesn't believe in flowers because they die, but he does the things that matter to me the most. He is BY FAR the best at giving back rubs and he gives them to me way more than I deserve (even if he doesn't want to), he makes me laugh more than anyone, and sometimes I think he knows me better than I know myself. I am so happy to be married to him! We now have our two beautiful kids to share our love with, and I hope that if we can't teach them anything else, that they will get to see a good example of what a marriage is supposed to be like from watching me and Chad.This is us as a young family (probably 4 years ago) This is us this past Christmas in Albuquerque, NM where our life started together as a couple.

I LOVE YOU CHAD AND I ALWAYS WILL!!!!