15 Years can give ya such a crick in the neck!

Ok, if you haven’t seen Aladin you may miss the punny I used for the heading.

Here we are, January 2, 2016, 15 years after saying “I do” in the Ogden courthouse surrounded by strangers and overwhelmed by doubt. The following weeks would prove no easier as friends and colleagues asked me what the hell I was thinking and the baby in my womb began developing at a rapid pace.

The first year would prove nearly impossible as my new husband and I spent it in two different countries. I, pregnant and alone, he facing a deployment and a growing family he didn’t hardly know.

We would survive that first year (barely) only to be thrown into the depths of hell (commonly known as Sierra Vista, AZ) as a new family with a newborn and no guidance on how to navigate this crazy roller coaster called marriage.

Being together a mere year and a half Rey would then be deployed to Korea, our marriage holding on by heart strings and doubt beginning to win the good fight. After a short 11 months in Korea, Rey would then be sent to Iraq (WTF?! This doesn’t happen, you do not go from one deployment to another!) for another 12 months. Doubt, anxiety, fear, all a part of my ever growing life as I finished up college with my bachelors degree.

Somehow though, we made it. We made it through all of that and he came home, resigned from the army and then, a few days after our sixth anniversary, he was hired onto a civilian job and was sent off to Maryland for training. From there we traveled to Kansas and were there a mere seven months when he was sent to Iraq again. By the time we had been married for seven years, Rey and I had spent four and a half of it apart.

This time, I was pregnant with a beautiful baby girl who would become our Bella Gianna (beautiful miracle from God). When Rey came home from leave he quit his job and stayed home to be a father, a husband, and a “real” civilian. Rey started school and we bought a house and I nearly died from the first of what would be two tubal pregnancies (and we had to let go of the house).

As he was in the throws of his final year in college I started my Masters degree, who knew this would almost kill our marriage?! The stress, the finances, the stress, and then I was pregnant and then we were on the rocks and then we were all better and life went on.

I completed my Masters program, had my second tubal pregnancy, was hired on to Davinci and Rey was unemployed. More life stuff but now the fear and doubt and anxiety were more internally caused and not so much externally caused.

In 2015, Rey found full time work (at Davinci), started his Masters program, we bought a minivan, and a house, brought home our dog, rescued a cat from the pound and are now living with our three kids in the burbs.

It’s funny how life can be such a roller coaster… the ups are soooooo high, the downs can be seem soooooo low, the twists and turns seem like they will never end and just when you think it’s almost over, WHOOOOSH, you’re off again, jerking this way, whiplashing you that way, the crick in your neck being both a pain and a blessing!

I’ll tell you one thing, there isn’t anyone on earth I would rather ride this ride with.

Thanks babe for getting on fifteen years ago and riding with me, there have been times you’ve wanted to get off, there have been times I’ve wanted to get off, but in the long run we’ve stayed on and I couldn’t be happier with that decision.

FOR-EV-ER!