Over the Years

Last week Thursday, Reese and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Normally, 10 years is a great milestone, but for me it felt like a huge accomplishment. Our marriage started out with Reese just finishing Marine Corps boot camp and me grieving the death of my mom just 2 months earlier. We were just 19 and we started out with some big "things" and it didn't stop there. We got married June 2, 2001 during peace time. Then came September 11th, we had no idea what that meant for Reese, for us. We went through an 11 month deployment to Japan and another 7 month deployment to Iraq while I was pregnant with Lane. From there we moved to Sumas, WA for three years before Reese went into the Navy. I must say that our marriage has been given many challenges. Being in the military is hard, the divorce rate is huge, especially in Reese's line of work. We have been separated a good part of the last 10 years. We joke that that is the reason we are still married :) We went through another deployment last year while I was pregnant with Estelle.

We have been blessed with three wonderful children. But the loss of Case has been so hard on us, on our family. We will forever be missing a part of our family.

I wanted to post pictures of us over the years. Mainly for me to have them all in one place, but also because I am proud to have reached this 10 year accomplishment together. The odds have been against us, but we have made it through and plan to continue.

2003 was the year I got a digital camera, so the rest of the pictures start there :)

Twenty Nine Palms, June 2003
Joshua Tree National Park June 2003
Old Town San Diego, January 2004
Welcoming Reese home from Iraq, September 2004
A trip to San Diego for a Marine Corps memorial service April 2006. This was the trip that got Reese thinking about the Navy.
Alaska 2006
Alaska 2007
San Diego, after finishing Hell Week, April 2008
San Diego, July 4, 2008

Graduation 2009, pregnant with Case

December 2009

Welcoming Reese home from Iraq again, pregnant with Estelle, September 2010

April 2011

Disneyland

Over the weekend we made a last minute trip to Disneyland. We had one day left on our three day hoppers. We got our picture with Mickey and all Estelle wanted to do was grab his face!
We stayed at the Grand California Hotel. It was awesome! We have never splurged to stay at one of the resort hotels, but they had availability at the last minute and so we did it. The bonus was that they had our room ready at like 9 am when we arrived so we didn't have to wait until 3 pm to check in. We spent the morning in the parks and then around 2:00 pm we went and hung out at the pool. Lane loved the water slide and the pool was so warm. Estelle loves splashing in it.
We had gumbo for lunch and then we had Creole food for dinner at a cool restaurant in Downtown Disney.
Then next morning we got up early and did the Critter breakfast at the hotel. So we dined with Chip and Dale, and some other forest creatures. Estelle thought they were cool, not afraid at all, mainly she just wanted to grab them.

Lane and Dale had the same teeth!
The hotel was beautiful and I loved that it was so close to the parks and Downtown Disney. Lane really loved the bunk beds and was so excited to sleep on the top bunk.

Downtown Disney has a Lego store. They were building a giant R2-D2 out front so Lane built some pieces for it and got certificate.
We ended the trip with some awesome pizza and headed home, where we all took naps (except Lane he watched a movie) We love being so close to all these theme parks. Lane is one lucky kid, I didn't go to Disneyland until I was 17!