It is anniversary week for my husband and I and we are celebrating not only eight years of marriage but 13 years together.

Highlights of the last Thirteen Years with my Husband

1. 1994: We met online playing a game on a local BBS (the same BBS we met Wyldlock) and began dating shortly after we met face to face. Love at first sight really does exist!
2. 1995: I spent most of this year sitting on the couch playing computer games and reading books. Bed rest is no fun! After a somewhat difficult pregnancy, our daughter was born in December of this year.
3. 1996: After overcoming some hardships, we finally started living together and building a decent life for ourselves.
4. 1997: Sometime this year or the year before (hey it’s hard to remember back that far) we started our own computer business. We had a store and everything. The problem was we tried to offer mostly computer parts that came with free or cheap service. What we should have done was focus on the service part and charged for that instead! We couldn’t compete with the bigger companies like Computer City. This is when I started dabbling in HTML and learning to build web pages. I even started my first “blog” although that term wasn’t around then. I called it a Diary.
5. 1998: Our first son together was born on a hot day in the middle of summer. This was the only baby of my four that I carried to full term. Of course this would be the summer we had record-breaking temperatures! The day after I brought him home from the hospital it got up to 105 degrees! Even though I had gestational diabetes, it was a fairly easy pregnancy.
6. 1999: Jack proposed to me in January and we were finally married on a gorgeous day in August. We paid for everything ourselves and this year was pretty much spent preparing for our wedding.
7. 2000: Y2K! This was a fateful year for Jack, as he lost a really great job the day he was supposed to start due to failing the background check. What caused him to fail? No high school diploma. Some paperwork was missed on this and literally minutes before he was to head out and start his job on the first day, he got the call that he couldn’t work. This was devasating to both of us. But he went that week and got his GED after not picking up a school book in over 10 years. The agency who placed him at the job he lost found him a 1 week temp job as a replacement. That turned into two weeks, then three. Each week he wondered if they’d still want him around. After a couple months they were so impressed they bought his contract and he’s been there ever since! I also became pregnant with our last child this year and we spent our first wedding anniversary with me in the hospital due to finding out I had uncontrolled diabetes (apparently it didn’t go away with the last pregnancy.)
8. 2001: I was induced three weeks early and our youngest was born after a very difficult pregnancy (I had to inject insulin the whole pregnancy).
9. 2002: We moved out of the rented house we had lived in for five years into a really crappy apartment in a horrible neighborhood. This was a temporary move so we could save and prepare to buy our first home. This was a rough year for our relationship as well. But we endured and came out better than ever. We learned that marriage can be work sometimes, but if both partners are 100% committed, you can get through anything.
10. 2003: We finally bought our first home and moved in on a 96 degree day. We seem to have a lot of events that involve record breaking hot temperatures. It took us over a week to get moved but the heat really slowed us down.
11. 2004: I got my first full time job in over 10 years and began a career. For the first time we were a two income family. We started the process of rebuilding our credit and finally got ahead financially.
12. 2005: Hawaii!!! Jack surprised me with a trip to Hawaii on Valentine’s day. This was actually for my birthday a week later. That was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.
13. 2006: This was actually a rough year for my family. My mom was in a horrible car accident where she broke her back, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my step father passed away. I don’t look back on this year with much fondness with the exception that through it all my husband was beside me and 100% supportive of everything I had to do. He even had to experience being a single dad while I spent weeks and weeks away from home helping out my mom and then flying to California for my job. It was the first time we had ever been apart that long and the saying is true: Absence DOES make the heart grow fonder. Even if you’ve been together over a decade.

The last 13 years of my life have been the best despite some hardships and struggles. Every year with my husband has been a blessing and I’m looking forward to many many more to come!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens:
Amelia June | pussreboots | Frigga | Holly | Tilly Greene | Buck Naked Politics

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