Happy Anniversary!

This weekend, my husband and I will celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary—separately!  No, we aren’t fighting, and we don’t need marriage counseling (at least I don’t).  It just happened to work out that way this year.  So while I am sweating it out with the four children in Mississippi, Paul will be sweating it out in El Paso! :)

So many things have happened in these twelve years, and most of them good.  I will recount some of these for you here.

• 12 years of wedded bliss (the honeymoon doesn’t have to end)!
• 4 sweet children that live with us
• 1 precious baby who lives with Jesus
• 2 RVs
• 4 states of residence—WV, NC, IN, MS
• 1 mission house
• 1 rented mobile home
• 1 cute little house (which, by the way, we are hoping to finish the paperwork and complete the closing next week, HOORAY! That means we can purchase a house in the area where we now live!)
• 1 Dodge Ram 3500
• 2 years of part-time evangelism (while teaching at ABC)
• 10 years of full-time evangelism
• 300,000+ miles traveled in meetings
• 16,000+ pictures
• Hundreds of sermons—I don’t think I can even figure out how many! :)
• Hundreds of friends all over the world
• 2 mission trips
• Dozens of adventures
• Countless everyday blessings
• 1 thoughtful and funny husband
• 1 extremely happy wife

Like I said, just a sample of the good things…  I thank the Lord for the husband he has given me, and for the wonderful life we have had together so far.  I am looking forward to the next 68 years!  :)

Happy anniversary, Sweetheart!  I love you and I am so glad to be your wife!

Down for the Count

Have you ever noticed how many things happen in a day? In a week?  I started counting the number of things that went on in our house just last week and I was amazed at all the different numbers.  Here is just a small sample of my number crunching.

4 –- number of stores at which I stopped to ask for packing boxes - nobody around here saves their boxes
66 - – boxes retrieved out of the McDonald’s dumpster in full view of the drive thru at lunch time
5 -– rolls of tape to put the boxes back together
6 –- pieces of toast that one of my children ate for breakfast
4 –- working burners, thanks to my Mr. Fix-it hubby
20 –- coupon inserts that I paid my daughters to cut out for me
9 –- garage sale signs
42 -– cupcakes baked and decorated for the garage sale
4 –- very helpful children
17 –- number of times Daniel asked for a cupcake
17- – number of times I told him “no”
11 -– loads of laundry done
12 –- hours sitting at the garage sale
See what I mean?  And I didn’t even count the seven dark chocolate M&M’s that I ate while writing this post! :)