Our 9th Anniversary

Nine years ago today Kevin and I said "I do."

Then Kevin kissed the bride.

Our Story:

Kevin and I met and started dating in April 1998. I guess you could say it was by chance that we met, but actually I think God put me in the right place at the right time. At the time, my brother and I lived in the same apartment complex. I had something that my mom had asked me to give to Scott. One evening I walked over to his apartment to give him whatever it was and Kevin happened to be there. We soon started dating and here we are 11 years after meeting and 9 years of marriage!

Kevin proposed on February 16, 2000. We were married on June 10, 2000. Needless to say, February to June was very busy with wedding planning and preparing to move. Our first home together was in the same apartment complex where I already lived in Jonesboro. We just moved to another apartment (on the ground floor). We only lived in the apartment for about 5 months when we moved to Paragould. Kevin had accepted a job in Corning so we needed to split the driving distance to work (him to Corning and me to Jonesboro). We lived in that house a lot longer than we ever planned. We finally moved to our current place in January 2007 (a few months before Mason was born). Now we are preparing for the biggest project of all- building a house. We just have to get our nerve up and take the plunge!

Having children (Anna & Mason) is our greatest accomplishment as a couple. God blessed us with two amazing kids! We are so proud of them and wonder what we did before they came along. We must have been bored out of our minds and didn't even know it. Unfortuately having children didn't come as easily as expected. We had two miscarriages and lots of tears (for me anyway) before we were blessed with Anna & Mason. They say hindsight is 20/20 and that is so true. Looking back I see that everything happened as God had planned. But at the time it was the most difficult thing I had ever endured. Sometimes I think of how life would have been different if I hadn't miscarried but then I would never have had my precious Anna and Mason. They mean everything to me and Kevin!

Here is a look at Kevin and I in our younger years....the dating phase of our life!

Celebrating my brother, Scott's, college graduation.

Our first jack-o-lantern.

Kevin's dog had puppies and we kept two of them. The one of Kevin's lap was my puppy, Bandit. The other puppy was Kevin's pick, Macie. This was at Craighead Forrest Park where we took them to play. They loved the ducks at the lake. We gave Macie away after we were married (and still regret it to this day but it was the right choice at the time). We had Bandit until he died last year.

Kevin bought my first horse for me. His registered name was Hug Me Hollywood but we called him Huggy. We was a great horse. He died in 2003 (a few months before Anna was born). We still miss him because he was perfect for me. Our favorite story of Huggy occured on a day when Kevin & I were riding horses in the fields around our old house. We came up on a huge mud puddle and Kevin rode his horse through it. So then Huggy and I start through the muddy mess. Right in the middle of the mud hole Huggy stopped. I thought he had hurt his leg or foot because I couldn't get him to go forward. Oh no, he wasn't hurt, he just wanted a mud bath! He started to lay down so I jumped off and then he proceeded to roll in the mud and water with my beautiful saddle on him!! He was covered in mud, as was I, so that ended our horse ride and we had to go home and wash everyone and everything. He was also famous for eating hotdog buns. We used to go to our friends house and roping arena almost every Friday night. If someone came near Huggy with a hotdog, he would try to eat it. He sat and ate my hotdog buns many times. He was some horse!

I thank God for giving me a loving, supporting, encouraging and Christian husband. God knew what he was doing when I walked to my brother's apartment that evening and met Kevin. I never dreamed that I was going there to meet my future husband and my future children's daddy.