the start of something good

Three years ago today, rehearsal was done, dinner with all the special people my life was over, and I was at my moms house with the best friends a girl could ask for trying to stay calm and rest up for the big day. That was nearly impossible, because I knew when I woke up in the morning I would be marrying the love of my life.

For our one year anniversary we went on a cruise with my brother and sister in law. It was the absolute funnest thing I had ever done! I had never been to the ocean before and neither of us had been on a cruise so this was a whole new, fun experience for us to share with each other. We ate way too much food, played BINGO with hundreds of other tourist, shopped, rode on a catamaran, snorkeled, laid by the pool, and watched the sun rise and fall together. It was 110% stress free and gave us time to really enjoy each others company before Daniel would start med school. We also knew that we would soon want to start a family so having a getaway like this was something we really wanted to do before then. It was the absolute best getaway possible.

A couple months after our cruise Daniel received his white coat and began his journey through medical school. Medical school was something that Daniel worked so hard for and seeing him start that journey was one of the proudest moments of my life.  This man surprises me everyday with how amazing he is and his love and compassion for people blows me away. He doesn't want to become a doctor because they make good money.... he wants to be a doctor so he can help the people who need it. If doctors got paid the same as teachers, there's no doubt in my mind that he would still do it. That is probably one of my favorite things about Daniel. How again did I get so lucky?

This picture is so, so special to me. This was taken Christmas Eve 2009, two nights before I found out I was pregnant. At this point we had been trying 6 months to conceive. I know that time is nothing compared to what many couples go through but it was still very hard for me. Month after month I "knew"  I was pregnant, but would end up being really disappointed each time. It was really, really tough. And this may be possible TMI, but we finally resorted to ovulation test in hopes that we would finally be able to start our family.  At the time this picture was taken I had a slight suspicion that I was pregnant simply because of the extreme exhaustion and headaches I was having... but tried hard not to get my hopes up again. Well the day after Christmas came and though I had originally wanted to wait a few more days before I took a test I just couldn't do it because this time something felt different. I woke up first thing in the morning, took a test... and waited patiently for what seemed like forever. When a faint line showed up I was ecstatic! I had planned out all these ways I wanted to tell Daniel but those all went out the window and I went and woke him up with the news. We were both really excited... but since the line was faint we wanted to make sure.... so I ended up taking two more test and sure enough they all had two lines. This was the day we had been waiting for and a day I will never forget. Our family of two was now a family of three.