Countdown to 6 Years

KJ and I will be celebrating our 6th anniversary next Saturday, May 22.  I recently heard of someone who did a Year-In Review of each year of their married life as she approached her anniversary day, and I thought that was a fun idea.  So...here goes!

We were married at Arab First Baptist Church at 4 p.m. in 2004.  We spent  our first night at The Victoria, a beautiful bed and breakfast in Anniston and the next day made the long drive to Orlando. We had a great vacation package with 4 nights spent at Disney World and 3 nights on a Disney cruise.  After that we extended our honey moon for 4 more nights at KJ's grandparents' house on Lake Sante Fe.  It was very relaxing, and I completed a lot of thank you notes while watching Charade, a very good Cary Grant movie.  From there we went to Mobile, where we stayed with my grandparents a few nights while I participated in the wedding of Ben and Joy (Baldwin) Finch.  So, we had a prolonged honeymoon (which was wonderful!) and then headed from there to Sylacauga to rent a U-Haul and pack up KJ's belongings.


Then it was on to Arab where we packed up all my belongings, along with the furniture I had been accumulating for our new home and made the move to Louisville so KJ could pursue his Master's degree at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  My parents drove up with us to help us move in to what became affectionately known as Bag End.  It was our own little hobbit hole with its low ceilings and semi-circle window.  We set up housekeeping, and I got a job in the Ministry Referral Office at the seminary.  

KJ started school and would often have lunch and dinner waiting for me when I would come home, as well as having cleaned the apartment (making my day!).  He started a church-planting internship in the fall, and we worked with a new church plant in southern Indiana, CrossRoads Baptist Church.  I ended up playing the piano for our new church, and we met so many wonderful families who influenced us greatly during our time in Louisville.  The church met on Sunday nights and shared a fellowship meal each week.  KJ and I met in the home of the Sweetland family on Wednesday nights with other church members for Bible Study and fellowship.  The Sweetland's became like family to us and were part of our lives throughout all our time in Louisville.

The "Josephus Bowl"

It was at CrossRoads that we met dear friends, Jacob and Joanna Reaume, who moved from Canada without even a car to attend Southern Seminary.  We shared many a meal with them, and it was through times spent babysitting their baby boy, Elijah, that the idea of an "Ella" was born.


I took KJ on his first camping trip in the Smoky Mountains, where he gallantly participated in the things dear to my heart (such as a 5-mile hike), though we found out shortly after we returned home that he had mono.  I then felt badly about asking, "Why are you walking so slow?"  But, we picnicked by a waterfall and rented a cool little car that we drove through Cades Cove, and read Return of the King by the light of our campfire (which took quite a lot of work  to get going).


At Christmastime we experienced our first Louisville blizzard.  I fell down in the snow on my way home from work.  We escaped the city amidst fast-falling flakes to spend Christmas in Alabama with our families and then had to find an alternate route into our apartment's parking lot upon our return because the snow plows had pushed big snow drifts at the entrance to our road.  

Our First Christmas at Bag End

Christmas in Arab

We also enjoyed many visits from family during our first year.  KJ's parents came up in August during an unseasonably cool spell that was very pleasant.  My family came up during Jesse and Judson's fall break, and we visited the Louisville Slugger Museum, as well as Abraham Lincoln's birthplace.  We also had a visit from David and Katie Kizziah, who were engaged at the time but preparing to come to Louisville the next year.

Lincoln's Birthplace (located inside the temple)

Louisville Slugger Museum

We also spent many hours eating dinner at our coffee table becoming acquainted with KJ's vast collection of dvds from China.  It was there I first watched Robin and the Seven Hoods, The Mask of Zorro, and the animated versions of The Hobbit and The Return of the King.


KJ finished his first year of seminary, and life was very sweet.  However, we did not own a digital camera during our first few months of marriage, and so the only pictures I have right now are some my dad has scanned.  I wanted to make it to the store today to scan pictures, but that will have to wait.  

Look at that!  We got a digital camera for Christmas that year!