2 years

Today Ryan & I are celebrating 2 years of marriage.

Such happy memories of the actual day...

Using some birthday money I recently purchased a book called Prayers of an Excellent Wife by Andrew Case (thanks Dave & Casey) and starting to read it today was perfect timing.

From the introduction:

"The implications of woman's origin are profound. Her dignity and worth, her necessity, her role in life and marriage, and her unique beauty have been established by God from the beginning. She was made to be a man's faithful helper. And there is no greater help she can offer him than her prayers on his behalf to the One who alone can provide perfect, sovereign help. When the psalmist sings, "I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?" he answers his own question with the words, "My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." You are not sufficient succor for him. A stronger Hand must come to his aid. Blessed is the wife who pleads often for his mighty Hand to keep her husband's life; who begs for him at the gates of Grace. This is the sort of woman who fears the Lord, feels her own weakness, and finds refuge and righteousness in Jesus Christ. She wants God for her husband. She is to be praised.

If you want to be an excellent wife, far more precious than jewels, pray for your husband. If you want to do him good, and not harm, all the days of your life, pray for him. If you desire to be a wife whose husband is "known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land," pray for him. If you open your mouth with wisdom, may it be full of wise prayers for your husband. Let not charm or fleeting beauty distract you from this vital task. The fruit of wise prayers will be better for him than the fruit of your hands. When it comes to this loving labor, may you never be found eating the bread of idleness."

Can I just say how excited I am to be reading and learning from this book and I look forward to growing in this area and serving Ryan for the next 2, 10, 20, and more years of our marriage.

God has been so kind to us in these two years of marriage. From a trip to England for Ryan to meet my grandparents and most of my family, to providing for a new car when it was needed, to blessing us with our sweet baby (only 72 days left until the due date), and everything in between. He is so good.

Ryan, I've only fallen even more in love with you - which I would never have thought possible. Thank you for leading our little family to be pursuing the Lord and trusting Him. You are such a wonderful husband and I can't wait to see you with our baby, you are going to be an amazing father. I love you so much.

Update

Well, it's almost two months since the last update... so it must be time for another :o)

Quite a bit has happened since April, and our summer is looking to be a fun and full one... but we can't wait for it to be over so we can have our little one in our arms.

At the end of April we headed up to Baltimore to visit with Ryan's grandfather and Uncle Scott.After Ryan and I had looked around and chosen items together, I went to the store and set up our baby registry! It was a lot of fun (using the little scanner thingy) and my Mum went with me. As a result of that trip we got our first baby clothes!

We had been talking about the kind of car we wanted to get as we needed to get one that a car seat could fit in properly! And so we looked around online... and it all happened so quickly, the next day we were driving a new car home! God was so kind to us, we got a good deal on an AMAZING car... we are still making up excuses to go out and drive it. This isn't a picture of OUR car, but it's one of the type of car we got (ours is a charcoal gray):



Mother's Day came and Ryan set the alarm early, told me to go back to sleep, and proceeded to make me breakfast in bed! It was so good, he spoiled me :o)


Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries and freshly whipped cream. He also gave me some beautiful deep red gerber daisies in a pretty flower pot and also a cute little onesie for baby.

Erin graduated nursing school and despite Ryan being super-incredibly-insanely busy at work he was able to take the day off to go to her graduation. It was great to be there and we're so proud of her years of hard work to get to this day.

This past weekend was the end of that very busy season for Ryan at work: he's still insanely busy but not super-incredibly so and it happened to coincide with my birthday. :o) He got off early from work on the Friday (I was expecting him to be working until 9 or 10pm again) and surprised me at home long before I expected him with flowers in hand and we were able to have the entire weekend together (he was on-call but never got called and even got memorial day off; we were not expecting any of that)! It was great fun.

The past couple of years we've gone to Georgetown for the day for my birthday - this year we did it a little differently though. We went to a Farmer's Market and Whole Foods to pick up some food items that we wouldn't normally eat (including the BIGGEST chocolate croissant ever) and then took it over to Brookside Gardens for a picnic in the back of the car (since you can't take food into the gardens). We then walked around the gardens for a while before heading back home to watch a movie and pick up some dinner. It was great fun... and just wonderful to be together after the long hours he had been working.



We're now looking forward to the rest of the summer which will include 3 weddings, several family get-togethers, Ryan being super busy at work on and off (mostly on), celebrating 2 years of marriage (!!), and then finally the arrival of our sweet baby. We're praying the baby will come 2 weeks early so that he/she can meet their Uncle Xan before he heads back off to college and, let's face it, we are impatient to meet them... but we'll see what God has in store - not long now!