Happy Anniversary to Us!

As of about 9:15 am we will have officially been married for nine years. Time as gone by so quickly. The last nine years has brought so many adventures and so much joy to our lives. I would be naive if I didn't say that it has also brought challenges but it has been all worth it to get to where we are now.
In our first year of marriage we lived in three different places. First with Grandma and Grandpa Edington (Thanks!). The second was in the Wesley Taylor Hall at EAC where Jeremy was Head Resident. The third was a little one bedroom apartment, of sorts, behind the Perkins home on College Ave. Part of the time in the one bedroom apartment Jeremy's brother lived there with us. Poor guy had to sleep on the futon in the living room. We all have fond and interesting memories of that time in that little apartment.
During our second year of marriage we graduated from EAC after which we did a little house sitting for about a month or so in which we moved out of our little apartment, put most of our things in storage and moved into the Matthews home. That was a fun time. We enjoy their beautiful home and pets. Shortly after that we moved up to Flagstaff to further our education at NAU. We moved into a one bedroom apartment in Campus Heights right in the middle of the NAU campus. We lived in the apartment until October when we moved into a Two bedroom apartment on Campus Heights because we found out we were going to have a baby. While Jeremy went to school I worked almost full time at Jo-Ann's Fabric and Craft store. I really enjoyed working there. Not only did I get a discount but I got to learn a lot about different project, people and fabrics. Jeremy enjoyed his classes and started working on his degree in accounting.
Shortly after our second anniversary and heading on into our third year of marriage Kelsi was born. That was an exciting time that came with a lot of adjustments. I stayed at home with Kelsi and Jeremy continued working on his degree. Parenthood brought much joy and a few challenges with it. Toward the end of the year we found out we were going to have to move again because they were planning to tear down the apartments we were living in so we moved into a different two bedroom apartment in Campus Heights. (Which later we found out wouldn't have been necessary because they ended up postponing the date of the demolishing of the one story apartment building we were in.) This move was done in December with a little snow on the ground and climbing up a flight of stairs. Jeremy also got his job at the NAU bookstore during this year.
Our fourth year of marriage Jeremy continued on with school and work. We survived our first year of parenthood and found out we were expecting baby number two. Jeremy also started a second job at Coconino Community College as an accounting assistant. It gave him some experience in his career field. That year he was also kept busy with his calling in the bishopric of our young married college ward. We met lots of new people and really enjoyed this time in our lives.
Year five brought with it the terrible twos for Kelsi, graduation from NAU for Jeremy, another move and the birth of Shaylee. Kelsi went through some hard times dealing with a new move and baby that created some sleeping problems that kept us up for hours in the night trying to get her back to sleep. Jeremy graduated from the NAU college of Business with great excitement to be finished. About three weeks later we moved to an apartment off campus off of Woodland Village Boulevard and then a week or so later Shaylee was born. She had a rough start and had to stay in the NICU for five days. That was one of the scariest and hardest times of our life. We were juggling between children and worrying if our child was going to be okay. Thanks to a wonderful pediatrician we were helped to understand what was going on and felt comfortable bringing Shaylee home even though she was going to have to be on oxygen for a little while yet. Adjusting to two children was tricky at times be we loved having them both in our home. Jeremy started another job working for FedEx for which he was up very early. That was an interesting time for him. That Christmas we had our first full size Christmas tree and tons of snow. The girls loved the snow. Jeremy and I not as much.
Our sixth year of marriage was a little bit more of a challenge but it ended well. Jeremy got a job with Concord Mortgage company in Scottsdale. So we pick up and moved to Anthem just north of Phoenix. We thought we are doing great. The job paid well but it was not enough to meet our needs. We were renting a house that was too much money, we bought a new car for Jeremy to drive the 45 min commute to Scottsdale from Anthem to Scottsdale and we didn't have health insurance. We ended up in the emergency room three time in the six months that we lived there. The bills added up and so did the stress. The job was getting Jeremy no where. They had him filing papers or doing little jobs. Some days he had hardly any thing to do at all. Those were the days that made it hard to want to go to work. The commute wasn't very enjoyable either. We loved living in Anthem and being close to Jeremy's family but it just wasn't working for us financially. We were grateful when in November Jeremy started a new job with Freeport-McMorRan (used to be Phelps Dodge). We got to move into the current home we are in and this job and life style suits us much better. We are definitely not big city folk.
Since this post is getting extremely long I will sum up the last three years. We have been fortunate enough to not have moved. Jeremy is still working for Freeport-McMoRan. Courtney was born last year. We keep busy with work, school for the girls and just every day life. We love our three little girls.
I love my husband so very much and am grateful for the love he shows to me and to our girls. Life has been an adventure with him. Ten moves and three kids later I can say I am grateful for the adventure that has got us to this point in our lives. Sometimes we got lost in the deep valley's of life but, with the help of each other and our gracious Father in Heaven, we were always lifted up again to the peaks where we got to enjoy the view and could see the path on which we were to go. Thank you Jeremy for loving me and supporting me. Thank you for being okay with the fact that I am not perfect and helping me to become a better person. Thank you for choosing me even though I didn't make it easy on you. Thank you for being you! I love you!