Anniversary gratitude

 

Today is our anniversary, and I #GiveThanks for the blessing of a permanent and lasting companion! We've been working on this marriage thing since July 18, 1987, and we're continuing to learn how to make it work through the opportunities and challenges. It's been a fascinating and interesting transition to go from meeting on the job and working together, to dating and marriage, through the years of raising children, to separate careers, then to our shared mission time. Now we're into the first "true retirement" period as we're both home and relatively unencumbered, looking for the way to balance our individual interests and our shared priorities. The adventure continues!
We've had our share of ups and down along the way - raising two wonderful children and then feeling the unmatched joy of our seven grandchildren; supporting each other in Church callings, other volunteer activities, and employment; traveling together through the country and internationally; each of us surviving both cancer and COVID; and so much more.
It's wonderful to be at this point in our lives and to have many great things still to look forward to! We know there will be many more joys and opportunities, and probably some more challenges and hardships. We feel blessed to be on this journey together, learning all the time and supporting each other through the valleys that inevitably come between the peaks. But through it all, life is good, and I am a blessed man.

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