August 1, 1987, we were married. Kevin and Katey. High school sweethearts. We celebrate our 25th Anniversary today. It doesn’t seem possible really. It seems like the first anniversaries ticked along in normal spend and then when the boys came along it has been in fast forward mode, a blur of bottles, backpacks and bruises.

This picture represents 125 years of marriage. Isn’t that awesome. I look at this picture though and say who are these people? Remembering our dreams, our thoughts our hopes, our love for each other.

When I was younger I would really, REALLY want to know what was going to happen in my future. How was something going to work out that I was stressing over, would it turn out? I would wish I could just flash forward one week, one year or 10 years and look around at my life for a minute or two then go back to my life so I would know how everything is going to turn out. If on my wedding day I could see my life today what would I think?

This isn’t going in the direction of did I think our marriage was going to work. I knew it would. I had no doubts. We made a commitment and it wasn’t up for question. This is more about what did God have in store for us. Thank goodness I couldn’t see what wonders awaited for me and Kevin. I say that for so many reason on so many levels. A peek in my life would do nothing to help my 19 year old self become the wife, homemaker, mother I needed to learn to become. Isn’t that why our vows says for richer for poorer, sickness and health…. We have to live through it all to appreciate where we end up.

Shortly after we were married I bought an Anniversary Memory Book. It has a page for every anniversary, a place for a picture and then a place for writing. I love to look over this each anniversary to see what we were doing and how we’ve changed over the years. We are getting away this weekend. I’m taking it with us.

Drew joined our Family 7th Anniversary

9th Anniversary when Chad completed our family

Before our preacher Gary Bradley would marry us, we had to have several pre-marriage counseling sessions. One of the tasks was to make a budget “because pencil figures don’t lie”. I came across this recently and I owe it to my dad that he had the forethought to save it. It is so precious. Kevin and I both had full time jobs and both were finishing up school. Kevin’s parents paid for his school and my employer paid for mine. Our budget was stretched tight. We lived in a two bedroom mobile home on 5 acres in the country so we could one day build a house. Which we did. Those who know Kevin personally know what a major challenge I had having a food budget of $240  a month. We have many wonderful memories those first lean years.

Don’t you just love this!! I do recall my dad pointed out that Kevin included my birth control pill but did not include his shot gun shells for dove season. This is priceless to me. We had $40 left for the month. We can now spend $40 in Wendy’s drive thru. I love our church giving. Giving when we had so much we could have spent it on.

This has become a quite lengthy post (528 words so far) but I feel it’s important to say that my high school girlfriends recently got together because our sweet Louise is in from Rwanda. There are about 13 of us with about 33 kids between us. We are all still married to our first husbands and we all began celebrating our 25th Anniversaries this year and in the coming years. I think this is a testament to how we were raised, what brought us together in the first place as friends, way back when, to our schools and churches and ultimately the spouses we sought. Congratulations dear friends on our awesome accomplishment!

It is an accomplishment. One of love and sacrifice. More giving than receiving sometimes. Letting things slide, holding on when you don’t want to. Holding each other when you need one another. And laughing. God has blessed Kevin with such a playful and fun laugh. Being friends. Having fun. We are still in the trenches with our boys but we are together in the trenches and there is no one I’d rather have beside me than Kevin.

Happy 25th Anniversary Kevin, I love you.

Katey