365 days later...

June 20, 2009, I said, "I do" to my best friend. 365 days later...we're both still alive! Kyle White did such a great job with our premarital counseling by preparing us for all of the ups and downs of married life. The first six months flew by me like a race car in the Indy 500! I wondered why people tried to tell us that marriage was hard and was something you had to work at every day. Then reality kicked in, and I suddenly knew what they were talking about!

Marriage is one of the hardest, yet rewarding experiences I have ever gone through. I never really viewed myself as a selfish person until I got married. I never noticed how much I had put myself first in the past 21 years (which should have been my first sign of selfishness...) until this last year.

There are so many things in a marriage that force you to go against human nature: thinking of others first, putting yourself second, and making sacrifices to name a few. All of these selfless choices help make you into a better person, though. Marriage is great, and I'm excited to see what God wants to teach me next through this journey with Zach.

Speaking of our anniversary, maybe some of you are wondering what we did to celebrate this joyous occasion. We took a road trip! One of my close friends since childhood jumped on the bandwagon and married the love of his life on June 19th.

We stayed with Zach's brother and 7-month-pregnant-sister-in-law in Indiana Friday night and Saturday night. Our itinerary went as follows:

-Friday morning we packed up and drove nine hours to Lafayette, Indiana
-Saturday morning we drove to Wadsworth, OH for the wedding
-(Zach was only 40 minutes away from his good friend from OWU, so he ventured up to Cleveland, OH and came back for the reception)
-Saturday evening we stayed for one dance at the reception, then headed back to Lafayette at 9:00 P.M., which put us in at 2:00 A.M.
-Sunday morning (our anniversary!) we made the nine-hour trek back down to Kansas City

24 hours in three days was quite tiresome, but so worth it! Weddings are a monumental event, and I was so glad I could witness Andrew and Brittani's special day. Seeing Andrew's face as he saw Brittani for the first time that day made me tear up, and made everything worthwhile. It was also great to be able to hang out with the fam for a little bit and as usual, the road trip with Zach was very fun indeed!

Zach and I have a tradition that we started last summer while trying to stay awake on our drive back from Michigan. We sing every single song and chant that we learned in Sunday school and VBS as kids. Even though we grew up in different churches almost seven hours away from each other, it turns out we know all the same songs!

Needless to say, on our way to IN from OH we had to bust out the songs again. I wonder what other people thought if they turned their heads to see a man and woman screaming at the top of their lungs and waving their arms around. If you were on the inside of Salena, you would know we were acting out and loudly singing to "Father Abraham"; however, it probably looked like we had bees in our car from the other side of the window!

That's all for now. Hopefully my next blog will be telling you all that we finally found a good car for Zach for a great price