A Walk Down Memory Lane - Chapter 5

Chapter 1 - Dating

Chapter 2 - Engagement

Chapter 3 - Wedding

Chapter 4 - Year 1

After a fun little getaway, we were back to the grind.  I continued working and Peter was soon off on his final year of college!  We had settled nicely into marriage by this point. We had a good routine and were just excited to get through this final year of school.  Fall brought lots of tax recruiting and Peter was very busy with interviewing along with all of his other responsibilities.  When the interviews ended, we were then left with some tough decisions regarding which job offer would be the best for our family. It was exciting to have options but also a little bit scary to have to make our first big decision together. Within a couple months of starting his senior year,  he had accepted a position at a Big 4 accounting firm! Life was going really good!  

We had a fun opportunity to go to San Francisco before the end of the year and cheer our team on in their bowl game!  It was a great little getaway to end the year!  

After an uneventful spring, we were on the fast track to graduation.  Getting Peter to graduation felt like a huge accomplishment for us, and it was!  It was the main hold up in when considering whether or not we could get married at 20, and it was the reason we had to work so darn hard in those early years. I was super proud to see how hard my husband worked to not only get through school but provide for his family at the same time.  It was no easy task for him to be taking a full class load, working 30 hours a week, and taking 2 community college classes each semester! He never complained about it all either, and he still never complains about working hard for his family!

To celebrate this big accomplishment we went away for a week of R and R to Jamaica!  It was just what we needed and we had such a good time together! Sleeping in, relaxing in the pool all day, eating lots of yummy food, not a care in the world!  It was so much fun and we have many wonderful memories of that trip!  

This still remains one of my most favorite memories of our marriage together. Think quiet, peaceful beach, right at sunset.  Nobody else around, being served a special dinner, and just enjoying the sound of the waves as the sun drifts away and all that is left is the light of the candles on the table!  It was a beautiful evening!

Even though we were quickly approaching our second anniversary, my desire to have a baby had not diminished by any means!  Peter was doing everything in his power to help me hold off as long as he could!  Enter our first little puppy, Juno. Peter fell in love with her picture online as she was a boxer with a rare genetic condition and therefore was born without hair.  She had to wear clothes because she got cold, sunburned in the heat, had numerous allergies, and was the most high maintenance dog I have ever met. But she was ours and we loved her!  

And she gave us a few opportunities to practice real life parenting skills!

And then another year had passed. The stress of college now behind us, the job hunt over. It sure felt  From where we were sitting that the next year of marriage was going to be great!  Peter would finally be starting his career and I had high hopes that maybe, just maybe my dream of being a mom wasn't too far off. 

2nd Anniversary in the engagement spot! 

 One of the most memorable moments from our 2nd anniversary was experiencing a pretty good shaker of an earthquake in Disneyland. The park instantly became quiet and as every ride had to shut down to be inspected, the park became quite chaotic.   Maybe, just maybe we would have taken this anniversary day earthquake as a sign that this next year might get a bit shaky, but we had no way of knowing that from where we sat on our 2nd anniversary, and maybe that was for the best. Hard days were coming, but we would continue to lean on one another to get through it all!