Four Years of Marriage

Our Anniversary

Jess and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary on June 2nd. We dropped Canon off at our friend's house and went out on the town. Not really, but we did go to a delicious Italian restaurant in Nashville and then went to grab dessert at another place. I enjoyed getting dressed up, I haven't done that in a while. We had a great time talking and just having some time to ourselves.

Jess gave me a sweet card and two new pandora beads for my bracelet. I love my pandora bracelet (he gave it to me for Valentine's Day right after Will passed away). I gave him a new CD he had been wanting and a book full of in home dates. You can find where I got the idea here. I filled the book in with 4 months worth of dates. We will be doing our in home dates on Wednesdays or Thursdays of every week. We actually started last night with a movie and our favorite ice cream. We will add to the book after the 4 months of dates are up. I just didn't want to fill the whole year up because we might want to do different things around the holidays, I wanted to be able to add to it later on.

Jess and I are really working on our marriage. We have found that losing a child can put a strain on your relationship (plus moving, having a toddler, and a new job), so we are really trying to be intentional about spending time together and being emotionally connected. I think the gift went over well and Jess really liked that I took the time to be creative.

I am so in love with Jess. He is such a wonderful man. He works so hard to provide for his family. He is such a wonderful father. He is so hands on with Canon and truly loves being with his son. He genuinely loves to make me happy which makes me very happy! :) He is such a Godly example to Canon and me.

Jess and I have been together for 7 years and I am just so thankful for him. On our anniversary I was thinking back to our wedding day. It was the most perfect day. It was everything I dreamed of and more! I was also thinking back to the gifts Jess gave to me on our wedding day.

My mom had met Jess that morning (wedding day) where my mom picked up the gifts. There was a binder of instructions. The first page had such a sweet note on it and each page after that had instructions on which gift to open when and a sweet note on why he chose the gift. The gifts were my favorite Sonic drink, a wedding day CD he had put together, a pair of real pearl earrings to take on our honeymoon, a "build a bear" wedding bear (this is when I lost it and bawled my eyes out and so was my mom), and another beautiful letter to me.

The story about the "build a bear" wedding bear.

First off Jess always got me stuffed animals for every occasion while dating. Anyway my mom and I had a running joke for years about "build a bear". When I was younger I loved stuffed animals (my mom just had me go through 5 trash bags full of them a few months ago), so when the "build a bear" stores opened up I always wanted to go make one, but wouldn't let myself. I told my mom that the guy I was going to marry would get me a "build a bear" bear. It was just this joke between us. I never told anyone else that (maybe my dad, but no friends or boyfriends). One boyfriend I had (before Jess) surprised me on a date and told me that before dinner we were going to "build a bear". So I of course got all excited and thought I am going to marry this guy (in all seriousness thank God I did not), but when we pulled up to the store it was randomly closed.

So anyway, Jess never knew about the "build a bear" and on my wedding day he gave me one! Doesn't God have a wonderful sense of humor and just knew what was important to me. It still makes me smile thinking about it. My mom and I were seriously in awe when I opened it up and were crying our eyes out.

I love how creative and thoughtful Jess is. I look forward to many more years together. Not years of just being together.

Rachel