• Anniversary
  • Happy 6 Years Together

    August 14, 2013

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    We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary in Paris again this year.  It just so happens that we’re in such a beautiful place when our anniversary comes around but I’m so glad that it does.  Really, we spent over a month celebrating our marriage in my eyes and hope we can continue to do it with our little girl.  It’s a time for us to be a couple and in the future, to be a family, to reconnect after so many months of being busy with work, friends, family, and the outside world.

    It’s almost as though we’re on another planet for a short while when we’re in Paris, not knowing anyone, not understanding the language, and it’s wonderful!  We do speak a little French but at the same time we’re able to go to a restaurant and not feel like we’re always listening to the conversations happening near us, thinking about what’s going on around us instead of what’s going on at our own table.  Of course we miss our family and friends and on occasion want to feel as though we have some kind of human connection outside of the two of us but that’s what’s exciting about coming home, about reconnecting with others.

    And while I’m thinking about our anniversary, I want to thank Dusty for being the perfect partner and companion.  I’m so lucky to have found someone that makes me a better person and brings the best out of me.  I hope I do the same for him.

    Every year we get our pictures taken to celebrate our anniversary and this year we took them a bit late (and the reason this post didn’t come in June, although I never think it’s too late to celebrate another year of wedding bliss), deciding that the maternity pictures were going to be a great time to also celebrate the big event that was happening during year six of our marriage.  I shared a few of the beautiful pictures on another post but here’s just one more.

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  • Every year we get our pictures taken as a little momento to celebrate another year together.  Since we celebrated our anniversary in Europe I thought it might be fun to try and find a photographer in Paris.  I thought it would be extra special because we were celebrating our fifth anniversary and Dusty proposed in front of the Eiffel Tower.  I researched photographers in Paris who had our kind of style and also spoke English.  I searched for testimonials and contacted a few that I thought might be good.  We were lucky enough to find Pierre Torset.  A few weeks before our actual anniversary we met Pierre very early in the morning at the Eiffel Tower.  We took pictures at the Eiffel Tower, then went down to the Champ de Mars and finally hopped in a taxi to Pont des Arts and the Louvre.  He took absolutely beautiful pictures and wish I could share them all.  Here are just a few.

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  • 5 Years

    June 20, 2012

    Our fifth wedding anniversary is in just a few short days and we’ll be celebrating in Italy so I thought I’d post a few days early. It’s been five wonderful years!

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  • Happy 4 Years Together

    December 2, 2011

    We celebrated our fourth year of marriage while in France. We went on a dinner cruise up the Rhone River. It was a great night and a great five weeks together. If you can believe it, we spent every day together. Dusty would work all day, I’d teach my online course in the morning and then go shopping at the market for lunch and dinner. We spent a lot of time together. A lot of people told us that they could never spend that much time with their significant other. This month away from distractions made me realize how much I enjoy spending time with Dusty and how much we have in common. Every year we get our pictures taken and although it took us six months to get them taken this year, they turned out great.

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  • This year we spent our anniversary at home and it was perfect.  Dusty surprised me with a wonderful dinner and my favorite dessert, bread pudding, from a local restaurant that has the best bread pudding.  He even solicited one of his employees (and friend) to bring the dessert to our place right as we were finishing dinner. Every year I think to myself how lucky we are to have each other or at least I am to have Dusty.  I know at some point life gets more complicated and things get harder but I still feel as though we’re in the honeymoon stage. And as always, here are our anniversary pictures.

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  • Two Years Of Marriage

    December 2, 2009

    Every year I’d like to get our picture taken together around our anniversary to see how we’re aging over the years. Right around our 1st year anniversary we had a good friend get married and the photographer was kind enough to take an extra pictures of Dusty and I together outside. This year a friend of Dusty’s, who’s a professional photographer, Mike Malone, took our pictures. Here are the wonderful pictures he took of us this summer.

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  • Because Dusty and I are so busy and don’t get much time to relax, we decided to get away for a long weekend this summer. This year we celebrated our second anniversary in San Diego. We stayed in the Gas Lamp District in San Diego and did a lot of great sight seeing. We road a trolley all around San Diego and got off and on at all the different spots around town. We laid on the beach, got a little too much sun and ate at some really great restaurants.

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  • Our First Anniversary

    November 2, 2008

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    In June Dusty and I celebrated our one year anniversary by going to Kansas City.We spent the day shopping in the Plaza, relaxing and just spending time together. With Dusty busy managing the BrightMix summer internship program and me busy with my summer teaching schedule we didn’t get to do much relaxing so leaving town for a day was a great treat.

    We weren’t able to save the top of our wedding cake so we went back to our cake guy and ordered a small cake for two and brought it with us to KC. It was better than we had remembered and was a great way to celebrate the day.

    A few weeks earlier one of my good friends got married and we took the opportunity to take an anniversary picture. I’m hoping we can get a picture taken each year so that down the road we can look back and remember the wonderful memories.

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  • First Time Meeting

    February 16, 2006

    In an earlier blog entitled How We Met I talked about how Dusty and I started dating. New Year’s eve (December 31st, 2003) was not the first time I met Dusty. We are both from Council Bluffs and so we had a few chance meetings. Dusty has had his own website for years and at one time he wrote in his blog regularly. After Dusty and I started dating I found this blog entry from July 3rd, 2002 where Dusty had written a blog entry about the first time we met. I thought it would be fun to share his thoughts on the first time we met on my blog since his under construction.

    The first time I met Dusty was because I hung out with Michaela but the reason I was reacquainted with him was because Keely was dating Nate (I introduced Keely & Nate). What’s kind of funny is that I can’t remember meeting him as much as he can remember meeting me. I have a faint memory of the night but no more than that. I do remember going to his house on another occasion but he was out of town. I just remember one of his friends was house sitting.

    July 3rd, 2002
    tonight started out as a dull night, and ended up being a bunch of people coming over to my house. i wasn’t drinking, but i still had quite a bit of fun, although i was tired to begin with and now its nearly 4:00am and people just left a minute ago… anywho..bunch of nates friends came over basically… most importantly willard (naturally), kayla, and this other girl (who’s name escapes me now, dammit). this girl struck me as cute when she first arrived, and was very outgoing and introduced herself right away and we started talking, having a nice conversation. she very much grew on me through the rest of the evening… VERY nice and friendly and outgoing, the type of girl thats friends with everyone. naturally, with my current string of good luck, she’s going to nwms with nate, and of course, has a boyfriend. shucks. oh well.

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  • How We Met

    December 31, 2005

    Dusty and I have been together for two years EXACTLY. We met on New Year’s Eve 2003. We had met previously, both of us originally being from Council Bluffs but had never went beyond the occasional hello or random meetings at a party.

    In telling how we met I better start from the beginning. I met Nate in my freshman seminar class at Northwest Missouri State. I don’t think I ever talked to him but happened to meet him months later during the summer at home. There Nate was, sitting at a table playing cards with my close high school friends. It so happens that he worked with some of my friends and was returning home for the summer like so many of us do during college to work and make some money.

    We all went back to school and I was never to see much of Nate again. I became friends with Keely while back at Northwest and found out she was from a small town outside of Council Bluffs. During my third summer home Keely and I went to a friend of mine’s apartment where we happened to meet Nate. As is happens Nate and Keely started dating.

    Almost a year and a half later Nate was at war, I was living in Omaha (having graduated a year prior) and Keely was visiting for the holidays during her vacation. On New Year’s Eve Keely and I, along with another friend Alyssa, were trying to find somewhere to celebrate the coming of 2004. Nate had said Keely should call a friend of his, Dusty, and that we should meet up with them downtown… and so we did.

    Dusty and I have been together for two years and without the New Year’s Eve invitation we might not have had the chance to meet.

    And here’s a little blurb to get everyone caught up on what’s happened with us over the past two years. Dusty lived at home until last February when my lease was up with my roommate, Jessi. She moved to Columbus, NE to be with her boyfriend, now fiance Todd. Dusty and I moved in together and now live in the Old Market. We really enjoy being surrounded by so many things to do and see. There are dozens of restaurants within blocks and lots of entertainment. Not surprisingly we love living together. I really can’t imagine living without him. We have a great time doing nothing together. He doesn’t mind my love for cleaning and I’m getting use to him leaving on all of the lights.

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