8 years ago...

Eight years ago...to the second (I timed the posting) I married my best friend. I am a lucky woman, not everyone gets to have the life I have, a life of true happiness.

In honor of eight years, I will list my favorite eight things of the last eight years with my honey.

1. Building an ever changing relationship with my best friend.
2. Raising Dewy and Pace
3. Brady
4. Reese
5. Elli
6. The Good-byes
7. The Hellos
8. The Moves

I think one through five are expected. I love my husband, dogs and kids! Life is good. But why do I like the deployments and the hello and good-byes that come with them, you ask? No, it isn't because the laundry pile and grocery list significantly decrease. It is that we must live apart. Yes, I do appreciate this. Why? Because it is then that our marriage is driven completely by our love, deep down in the bottom of our heart kind of love. During deployments it is not Karl's cleaning the toilets that make me love him (I do however love this), it isn't his bringing the trash cans to the road, it isn't his loading the car with suitcases perfectly in anticipation of a vacation, it doesn't happen during deployments....it is his love for me, his sincere concern for my happiness. During deployments that is all you have...is love. Now with that said, it makes the hellos that much sweeter. It makes you appreciate the times he is there to load the car or drag the trash cans to the street.

I love my life and the journey the past eight years has handed me, and honestly I wouldn't change a minute of it. Karl Spencer Orthner, I do.

Here's to another eighty!