Oh Happy Day!

Today, Phil and I celebrate 9 years of being married. Amazing to think about! We've had our arguments, but we've stuck it out and never gave up. I guess that's our secret to staying married as long as we have: never giving up!

And this is how it all began
Phil and I met in Tucson, AZ. I moved from Reno in August 2001, and Phil moved from Brooklyn in November. By January, we were both working at Olive Garden. After a few dates, I was hooked! We married in August of that same year!

Thank You For Being a Friend!
Not expecting any financial help from our families, we worked to keep our wedding as inexpensive as possible. Our wedding rings (which we later exchanged for tattoos) and my dress were our most expensive investments. We held our wedding in our friend's backyard. She purchased champagne and cake for us and our 20 guests. My aunt took pictures, and we held an informal reception at the pool attached to the hotel where my family stayed.

The Story of our Lives
I'm not sure if this is true for everyone, but anniversaries make me think of our wedding vows. We (well, I) wrote our simple vows.
I choose you above all others to be my companion, my love, my wife/husband. I will cherish our friendship and love you today, tomorrow, and forever. I will trust you and honor you. I will laugh with you and cry with you. I will love you faithfully through the best and the worst, through the difficult and the easy. What may come, I will always be here. As I have given you my hand to hold, so I give you my life to keep. I make these promises to you lovingly and freely, and I vow to honor them all the days of my life.
We have definitely lived out those vows, going from relatively comfortable to outright poverty, miscarriages, diabetes, and neurological disorders. As I said before, we made a commitment to never give up, and that has been a promise we have kept.

Celebrate Good Times
For most of our anniversaries, we've had dinner at Olive Garden, for obvious reasons. One year, we had Deb & Phil's 5 days o'fun, where we took day trips each day to places we'd never been. This will be the first anniversary in the last few years we won't be going to OG. But, I suppose just being together as we celebrate 9 years of marriage after only 6 months is celebration enough!

Happy anniversary, my companion, my love, my husband! I'm already looking forward to number 10!