FORTY, yes I said 40 Years!

May 19, 1984 -- Forty years ago today we said I do to each other. Over the years I'm sure there have been many times we questioned that decision, but we stuck it out. Back in 1984, my hair was still the original color! Mark had a giant mustache. We drove to Atlanta after the wedding reception, which was held at the church and we served fruit, cheese straws, wedding cake, grooms cake, nuts, and non-alcoholic punch. I just remembered a funny detail. Mark let me out at the door to the hotel and went to park. There was a fire in the hotel and the fire alarm went off AFTER Mark drove off. People were pouring out of the hotel and bar into the parking lot. A man who had been in the bar . . .tried to pick me up. I remember giving him the stare of death and saying, "I just got married!" The next morning we flew to the Bahamas. A whole lot of weird things happened that week from not being able to check into the hotel for hours and Mark was not willing to leave our luggage. Also, he took his fishing poles on our honeymoon BUT he didn't use them. After our week away, when we got ready to fly home, there was a teenager flying our plane. Seriously. He was sitting in that cockpit and we both look at each other. We made it home . . .but our luggage didn't. It came in a day or so later and that gorgeous conk shell packed in our suitcase SMELLED HORRIBLE. 

In the attic, in boxes yet unpacked, are pictures of us along the way. We were pregnant with twins on our second anniversary and I gave birth in November of 1986. There were some tough years -- years where we were tired and sick and tired of being tired. For most of the first 18 years of our kid's life, I was a stay at home mom. I worked part-time for a few years from the time they were 2 1/2 until they were in lower Elementary school. Then I stayed home with them until spring break of their junior year of high school.

Then they went off to college and it was just the two of us again. It took a little while to get back into the groove of being Mark and Lisa again, rather than the parents of our kids.

Our son proposed to his wife when they were finishing up at Auburn and they got married in the same church where Mark and I married and they had a cat and a dog and a baby.

We became grandparents . . .no longer just Mark and Lisa, but Pops and Gran.

Then our daughter got married in the same church.

and she and Scott had a baby.

And then covid . . . . .  a global pandemic.

The world began to re-open and we started doing fun things again.

And we are still married and still traveling together and still doing family together.

And then our house burned down and we moved to an apartment and started along year and 10 day journey to come home again.

The photo above was in November after we moved home at the end of July. Our daughter was pregnant with baby number 2.

And below was in March at granddaughter #1's eighth birthday party and we are still married.

And we've arrived at the 40 year point. I won't lie to anyone who asks. Some years have been amazing and some years have been tough. Our faith in Christ has kept us together many times.

FORTY YEARS!!

Happy Anniversary to us!