Little Kite Girl

One year ago today I woke up here, in this apartment, all by myself. My Mom and Dad and brother and I packed up my wedding dress and all our luggage into a rental car and drove down to Manti (here we are!)

where we checked into the Rose Cottage, a beautiful, beautiful bed and breakfast. It was amazingly beautiful- we all had our own room, and it was above the reception hall where we were to have our luncheon the next day.

When we got there I was anticipating FREAKING OUT. But I stayed calm…and as I remember I laid down and took a nap while waiting for John and his Mom to arrive in my car. It rained and thundered that afternoon- and I slept soooo soundly. That evening was nice- dinner and time with family, a trip to WalMart to buy our first “married” shampoo and conditioner so John could wash his hair the next morning. John dropped me off at the B&B around 11 and then went to his hotel. I took a bath and then crawled into the big huge bed and just stared, saucer-eyed at the ceiling until I fell asleep. I can’t believe it was only a year ago today.

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of this:

Check it.  I had a waist.  I can’t believe it’s been an entire year.  I hear that the first year of marriage is the hardest- and if that’s true- we’re set.  I think the best thing is that we’re simply not sick of each other yet.  We’ve spend a good chunk of of the year together- literally.  We’ve gone through classes and exams, jobs and the loosing of jobs, cars and the crushing of cars (NOT our fault), pregnancy (yes…I’ve been pregnant for most of our marriage) and sickness, invasive medical procedures for both of us, family happenings and changes, and a whole lot of other things in between.  I’ve gone from not even letting him see me blow my nose to having long conversations about the state of my bowels to see if we have to go to the emergency room.  Today we had an abbreviated “outing” to celebrate our anniversary because bluntly…I didn’t have the energy to really do anything elaborate or even too fun.  But all of that, I think it represents something very very real.  I know John has very specific guidelines with who he’ll call a friend.  Even as his wife…I’m not sure I meet the time requirement to be termed “friend” in his traditional way, but he is my best friend.  He is the person I believe over everyone else.  He is the first person that I go to when I need something or someone, and the first priority I have in making people happy or making sure everything’s ok.  Our relationship and our year have not been perfect, we’ve actually had a lot of things happen that have been rather difficult.  But all this morning I was just filled with pure HAPPINESS because of how complete life is because I found him to go through it with.  It’s pretty good stuff.  Here’s to year two

Oh, and if you’re curious about what we did today, well…it was pretty fun.  We started out with a trip to Hallmark…because I’m not driving myself places at the moment.  We got each other cards (we both picked a row and had to find something there, it was kind of funny and a new tradition, I think) and picked Camper up the cutest little bear in the world.  Then we went to lunch at Squatters where we sat outside and had a nice meal.  I was still feeling okish by then, so we went over to the bookstore to get our pre-appointed anniversary gift for each other.   An Atlas.  A driving atlas, to be specific.  We decided that for our paper anniversary, nothing would be more appropriate or symbolic than a map- for all the places we’ll go together.  Corny, ahhhhh.  We found another gift for Camper there…a book called “Hush Little Dragon,” sooo cute and funny.  (Don’t you love how Camper got more presents today than we did?)  Then we rounded out the afternoon with a stop at Marie Calendar’s for some pie- and then home to rest.  I spent most the morning just trying to be still so I could make it through the day, and I think I did ok.  I still can’t walk very far, and my back is currently telling me I overdid it…but we had to do SOMETHING for our anniversary.  I think it was a good day.  More of those to come, I’m sure.