Hi, my name is John

It was college orientation and a cute blonde hair blued eyed guy came up and introduced himself to me. My initial thoughts were that he looked pretty cool but that he was loud and obnoxious. I wasn't going to start dating any particular boy, i had had it with guys, i just wanted to have fun.

We struck up a friendship immediately and started dating despite both of our parents instructions to stay away "from the seaba boys" and "the neir girls" (long story behind that but our older siblings had dated). He would go running with me every afternoon, back then we didn't get into arguments about who was not holding a steady pace when we ran together. ha!

We fell in love scrounging up enough change to put a couple dollars of gas in his car to get us to taco bell. We would sit by the hour in the parking lot talking about and planning our future. I remember discussing how many children we wanted if we got married. We both wanted four!

We said "i do" on a rainy May day (much like today) he had just turn 21, i was still 20. We had no idea what our future held but were excited to start our life together...

15 years later we are celebrating our 15th anniversary together. I am not just saying it when i say "i am married to my best friend".

We had the carefree pre-kids stage when we both worked full-time and spent our weekends at the movie theaters, watching every movie that came out! I honestly cannot even remember what i did with my time back then!

We then entered into the phase of starting a family. We had two children within a period of two years and life got busier. We bought our first house, i went to working very part time and enjoyed being home during the day with the kids.

The next phase we entered into was a period of about three and half years where in trying to grow our family we lost three pregnancies and dealt with secondary infertility. It was a sad and frustrating several years. John was always there with a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen.

God had more plans with our family and the next phase was two more children within two more years. We now were extremely busy and sleep deprived as our last child dealt with allergies that caused her to have a very rough first 6 months.

We are in the school days phase now and can't believe we have middle schooler next year. I still have the two little ones at home with me, our house is loud and full of action. There is never a dull moment, and some days i live for nap time. I know we will miss these days so we are trying to slow down and enjoy them.

We are so thankful for these fifteen years that we have had, God has blessed us with our dream of four children, even though some days our four hoodlums make us feel like we are going to lose our minds we wouldn't trade them for the world!

There have been bumps along the way, high points and low points. I am thankful that through all of it, i have had my best friend by my side. Don't get me wrong lot's of days we drive each other nuts, but he has always been there to support me and love me!

Happy Anniversary babe, i love you (even though you are still a little obnoxious) and look forward to the next phase of life...maybe it will even be a diaper free phase soon... :)