Our Story - Part 4

To Continue the story of us, we arrived at our 1 year wedding anniversary! Our first year of marriage was pretty amazing, but our second year was pure perfection! It had its tough times, although they were few and far between. But by all accounts of anyone looking at our life, it was pretty amazing. We had everything going for us and we were well on our way to the perfect little American dream!

For our first anniversary we decided to do a little tour of our home state of Oregon. We drove down south and visited beautiful Crater Lake!

We also did a very quick dip into Northern California to visit the Redwood Forrest!

The majority of our Anniversary trip was spent in Gold Beach. It remains one of our very favorite beach destinations. There isn't much to do down there, but that makes it pretty darn perfect! It is warmer than most of the Oregon Coast and doesn't have the tourists so you can enjoy the beaches all to yourself.

I will never forget the important conversations we had while sitting on that beach as we concluded our first year together and looked forward to an entire lifetime in front of us!

Peter also bought me my dream car for our first anniversary :) Okay, so a purple jeep wrangler WAS my dream car, but it just didn't seem practical if we were starting to discuss growing our family so this one would do!

And before we knew it, we were back in to school for Peter's senior year. The year we had been waiting for. Life returned to the normal we had come to know. The only change was in addition to everything else keeping Peter busy, he also spent that fall in the midst of rounds of job interviews. Before we knew it, he had a couple offers and we made our choice to pursue his career at the big accounting firm. Yep, we were well on our way to living the American dream!

Before we knew it, spring had sprung. And Peter had completed the task! He would graduate and life would finally change. I could feel the relief hit me that the main financial responsibility for our family was now behind us. I would support Peter's income while we worked hard to pay down debt so someday my dream of becoming a stay at home mom could come true!

It was a huge celebration for us that he was all done!!! I was so very proud of him and that we really were able to survive those 2 years of marriage :)

To really celebrate, we took off for Jamaica to take a well earned break and relax. As much as Disneyland is and will always be our favorite vacation destination, Jamaica was the most perfect vacation we could ask for. It still remains in my book, our best vacation!

It was so beautiful and the resort went out of their way to make it special for us. Our travel agent told them we were on our honeymoon so they went the extra mile to make it romantic - kind of fun to have a second honeymoon!

Jamaica was so beautiful and so amazing!

Cuddled up in a hammock to watch the sunset. It was great and romantic, until instantly when the sun went down the nighttime bugs came out!

And all-inclusive is seriously the way to travel. We ate and ate and ate sooo much and it was all included in the room. And the desserts were the very best part. We ate a great deal of desserts and didn't feel guilty at all :)

Now, my most favorite memory of married life took place in Jamaica. Alright, my most favorite "couple" moment of marriage because getting the call, holding our son, ultrasounds, and giving birth rank are contenders for those best memories. But we had the opportunity to have a secluded dinner on the beach in Jamaica and it was sooo perfect.

Imagine having the opportunity to be on the beach alone, total peace and quiet except for the waves which are breaking right in front of the table. Candles, Flowers, an amazing meal that I had no idea what I was eating - it was pretty darn perfectly romantic!

Well, we had to come back to reality at some point. Although I could have stood for a couple more weeks just soaking in paradise.

Peter wouldn't start his job at the big accounting firm until fall, so he continued at his internship throughout the summer. On kind of a whim, we decided to list our little condo for sale. We had bigger plans and I had dreams of adding to our family in the near future!

We did add to our family that summer. We fell in love with the most adorable little hairless boxer rescue puppy (Peter's second attempt to keep me content and baby free for awhile).

Our life was shaping up to appear like the perfect little cookie cutter. We knew we had been incredibly blessed in those first two year of marriage and well, we needed it. The road was going to get a little bumpy in the 3rd year.