On Friday July 25, 2014 I have the privilege to say that I
have been Mrs. Kevin Griffith for 5 blessed years. While most of my blog posts
have been about health, clean eating and fitness, today I want to share with you
what a true love story looks like. Today the love story is mine and I will
share with you what it takes to stay married and in love for five years strong.
If you were to ask my 9th grade self who I was
going to marry I would have told you Kevin Griffith and my naive 9th
grade self was so totally right. Kevin and I started dating when I was 14 and
never have stopped loving each other since. We literally have grown up together
and built a life that many young women would kill to have. There is something
so special about sharing all of life’s milestones together. We experienced high
school hand in hand and like most high school sweethearts had a few month long
break ups here and there testing how much we really loved each other. Many told
us “oh you will never marry your high school sweetheart just keep looking.”
Those who offered that advice were wrong. Sometimes you do. He cheered me on
thru college and promised me that at the end of that degree he would marry me.
He proposed at sunrise in Sedona Arizona the summer before my senior year of
college with one of the most stunning rings a girl could ask for. Our wedding
was one of the very best days of my life. Only coming in a close tie with the
day our son was born. He has followed me to where life has taken “me” because he
wanted to support my dreams of being a teacher. We moved our life to State
College for MY job and my dreams. He stood beside me and we built our new life
together here. After two years of renting and enjoying being a newlywed he
built me my dream home. We welcomed our first and only so far into the world a
few months after we have moved in and the rest is history so far. Below you will see a few pictures of the journey along the way.
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Carefree Days Together
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Young And In Love
Younger Years Together
College Days
Marry Me?
What I kept calling "The Best Day Ever" - Sunrise proposal- looking teary eyed!
Along with me every step of the way....
Bachelorette Party Night - Getting excited to be Mrs. Griffith
The Honeymoon
Settling into our new town as Mr. & Mrs. Griffith
"And then there were 3"
 Building me our dream home |
 Opening the door to our new future the day we closed on the house |
"The other best day of our life"
Ugly Sweater Christmas Party Smooch- Still in love after all these years
"And they lived happily ever after"
What I will tell you now is something that I remind myself
often. Being married and staying married and staying happy takes a hell of a
lot of work. Dating is fun, it is easy and carefree but being married and being
parents, that is the tricky part. You see for many, at least for me a lot of
the romantic things we girls dream about – they tend to disappear a little more
than we would like, habits that we never saw when dating surface and you find
that there will be days when you have to try really, really hard to make things
work. But here is the secret- you have to show up, every single day, you show
up and you love them even when it’s hard. Why? Because when you walk down the
aisle you make a promise to them, God and your family to love them forever… not
just for as long as it’s fun.
"Signing up for our forever"
If you want to stay married you have to show up
and work for your marriage and some days you have to fight like hell to keep it
going. After 5 years I have learned that some days are not fun, but if you work
really hard, you can create a beautiful life. Not just one that looks good on
the outside but one that feels good on the inside. Everybody’s grass looks
greener on the other side, but rather than looking on the other side maybe you
should water your own lawn. If you focus on your marriage and cultivate love
you will find your happily every after.
Above our sink in the kitchen I have two things that make me
smile every single day. The first is above the sink and it reads this “And they
lived happily ever after.” The second is a quote on the window seal and it says
“Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.” It is a reminder daily that I am
blessed to have married my best friend and it makes me proud of our hard work
together. We really do have our happily ever after and I really do want to grow
old with him. Even on the days he makes me crazy, I’d pick him to spend forever
with every single time.
"Truly Best Friends"
This week when we celebrate our anniversary we have a few
fun traditions that I will share with you and I hope you consider starting
these traditions for yourself as well. On our anniversary we plan something
special just for us. Some years we go big and some years we go small but every
year we make it really special. Why you ask, because it was the best day of our
life and its fun to relive the best day of your life right? This year we are trying something new.
We were going to go away but after much discussion a “staycation” sounded even
more appealing. We wanted a weekend at home without our little one. Why would
we want to do that? Because for as long as we have lived in our home I have
either been pregnant with Carter or we had him. Leaving us little time for
dates when we want, sleeping in and enjoying our house without having to worry
about naps and snacks and bedtime. This weekend our home will be just ours for
a little bit of time. While we will miss our little man I am looking forward to
it just being us like “old times.” We each are in charge of a day of the
weekend. We have many surprises planned for each other. I cannot wait to spend
the time with him and am very excited to see what he has planned for me.
We also have a journal that I spend the week leading up to
our anniversary preparing. You see when it came time for our first anniversary;
I wanted to do something really neat that would start a tradition. I love
traditions! I started our love story.
In this journal I write about each month of our year that is coming to
an end and all the milestones that happened during that time. Some are happy
milestones, some sad, some exciting and some that just make you chuckle. My
reason for doing this is that our life is pretty amazing and I don’t want to
ever forget how blessed we are. Someday when one of us passes away or maybe
when we are both gone our children or the one left behind will treasure this
journal forever. I already treasure it so much and I am only 5 years into it.
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The Anniversary Journal
On the evening of our anniversary we sit down with this
journal and have cake, we drink champagne out of our wedding flutes and we read
this journal. Sometimes it makes us laugh and sometimes I get choked up but it
makes us feel proud of the life we have built together. After we read the
journal we also read our guest book and all of the sweet wishes and messages
from our family and friends that day. Life is short so we celebrate each year
that we have been blessed to spend together. Cheers to year 6 and many, many,
many more!
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