16 Years of Marriage

Tomorrow is our 16th wedding anniversary, and I feel like K.J. and I have 15 years of low-key anniversary celebrations under our belt that have prepared us for an anniversary taking place during a pandemic when restaurants and cinemas are closed.  

Truly, we've always celebrated in whatever avenue felt natural at the time, no fancy dinners required.  Our celebrations are on a scale from last year's Starbucks date all the way to our two weeks in England on our 7th anniversary.

Each year on our anniversary and Valentine's Day I play a game that K.J. hates:  "Let's think about what we did on this day for the entire time we've been together!"  K.J. has a good memory, but it does not record that particular information.  I thought I'd be kind and do some digging through an old hard-drive.  Now we'll always know.

Year One

K.J. was cutting his own hair, I was young, and we were both a little pink from a day at the beach on Dauphin Island.  We went to visit my grandparents in Mobile and see friends after his sister's wedding.  It was our first year living in Louisville, Kentucky, and we are eating my Papa's famous shrimp and rice.  

Year Two

This is about a month before our second anniversary, and I only have this picture thanks to my dad!   I'm pregnant with Ella, and K.J., my dad, and I just loaded up a moving van with our belongings so we could move to a townhouse.  We also unloaded everything in the same day, and my body was so achy at the end of it.  No photographic evidence of our second anniversary exists.  Did we go to that Mexican restaurant down the street from our new place?  Did we go to Cheddar's?  Both seem possible, but no one knows now because the iPhone wouldn't be on the market until the next year.

Year Three

Again, I have no idea what we did to celebrate our actual anniversary.  My sister and brother-in-law were living in the Louisville area then; did they babysit for us?  Did K.J.'s brother baby-sit, because he was in college there at the time.  Again, no one knows.  I am sensing a theme here in how amazing the advent of the iPhone was in helping us remember things.  I know we went home to Alabama in May for my youngest brother's graduation, but I don't have those pictures here.  But here's our family of three at the Louisville Airport.  K.J. is picking up his girls who took the $69 Southwest flight from Louisville to Birmingham to celebrate his grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.  K.J. had to stay behind and work, good man.

Year Four

May 2008 K.J. graduated from seminary, and we moved back to Alabama.  Photographic evidence says it was a low-key anniversary.  A new friend let us borrow the key to her neighborhood pool, so we took Ella.  I have another picture of Ella holding up a picture to the wall in our new house to see if it would look good there.  I feel sure we must have gone to eat or to a movie, though.  After all, we had just moved to the same city with K.J.'s parents.  Surely we took advantage of free and glad babysitters.  Prince Caspian was in theaters then.  I bet we went.

Year Five

Now I completely remember our 5th anniversary, though there is no photographic evidence of the day of course.  This might be the first year K.J. planned something that was tailor-made for my delight.  Maybe it takes five years to really get to know your spouse.  

I was pregnant with James and was just reaching the point of needing new clothes.  K.J. planned a night away at a hotel in Birmingham.  We left Ella behind, and the best part was he told me not to pack anything; I could go shopping for everything I needed when we got there.  We ate dinner at P.F. Chang's at the Summit.  We went to Old Navy and Barnes and Noble.  The following day the shopping continued at the Galleria.  It was the perfect gift to me.

Year Six

Year six K.J.'s brother ended up marrying on our anniversary, and I will for.ev.er remember this day, because that woman in the picture only slept about two hours the night before because a 7-month-old James had just learned to press up on his arms.  He slept on his stomach at the time, so each time I put him down asleep in the crib he would immediately wake up and press up on his arms and cry.  I finally grabbed a couple of hours with him sleeping on my chest in the bed.  I can vividly see myself in the shower at my grandmother's house that morning before a full day of wedding parties and pictures leaning my head on the wall and praying, "Oh, God, I feel like I'm going to die."  But God was gracious, and weddings are exciting and fun, so I made it.  And K.J.'s cousin Hillary baby sat for us when we got back home so we could go out, so double picture time.  Double picture time because guess who finally got a good camera and started taking pictures and never stopped?!

Namaste sign because the series finale of LOST was the night before, and we had a viewing party.

Year Seven

The day of our anniversary fell on a Sunday, and we went to Olive Garden after church with friends that night to eat.  I think the kids were with my parents because K.J. had just arrived back home from Cuba, and we'd had a wedding the night before.  But our big celebration was our Year of Jubilee trip to England in the fall of that year.  It was a life-changing, life-forming trip.

Year Eight

Apparently Ella graduated from Kindergarten on our 8th anniversary.  This picture is with K.J.'s grandparents the night before graduation.  I feel like we took her to the McDonald's at Wal-Mart beforehand?  I told you we weren't fancy restaurant people.  I'm sure we must have marked the occasion in some way, but all I remember is Kindergarten graduation and learning Ella had the highest GPA in Kindergarten.  I love the matching sneers Ella and James have in this picture.

Year Nine

After a mission trip to serve Emmanuel International Church in Paris we stayed an extra week to celebrate our ninth anniversary.  When the occasion presents itself, K.J. outdoes himself.  We drove around Normandy for three days, staying in different places, but the main anniversary surprise was staying at this chateau with a Marquis and Marquess.  It was a dream...but I left a new sweater there that I still miss.  This trip would also turn out to be life-changing and life-directing.  It really cemented in our hearts that we felt called towards Europe.

Year Ten

Ella made me the necklace I'm wearing for our anniversary, and I wore it to a retirement party for a dear friend of ours.  After the party we had dinner at Panera Bread and went to Barnes and Noble afterwards where I had a coffee frappe.  It wasn't fancy, but it was us.  

Year Eleven

Anniversary eleven we were six months into living in England.  Friends kept our kids for us, and we drove to York to keep up with American culture and had dinner at a French restaurant after I turned down the crazy first restaurant K.J. tried to take me to with a lot of animal heads on the wall.  I had Camembert for dinner, so I was happy.

Year Twelve

Ella made K.J. and I these matching badges to wear to church.  In England kids often wore badges to school on their birthday.  It was the day of the family bike ride to a neighboring village, and Ella and K.J. took off only to return a little later because Ella had a stomach virus.  But I had just discovered Marks & Spencer in a neighboring town, and I bought one of their weekend deals, so we parented and ate individual desserts out of small jars.

Year Thirteen

Look, another Marvel movie!  The kids were in school, so we were able to go to brunch in Harrogate and then to our first movie on a sofa where we ordered snacks and drinks from a waiter.  Fancy.

Year Fourteen

A lot happened in a year.  On our 14th anniversary we'd been living in Paris for four months, and Lua and Seth were visiting.  They oh, so kindly hung out with the kids for us, and we went to Five Guys and to a movie.  I don't remember what, but I feel like it had to be another Marvel movie, doesn't it?  It's just that time of year.  Yep, it was totally Black Panther.  We got caught in the rain walking back from the Metro and took this picture to document in the courtyard of our apartment.

Year Fifteen

Last year we started out dreaming big--fly to Venice for $50?, go see Hugh Jackman perform, dinner at the Greek restaurant in our town?--and ended up going to the mall, ordering iced coffee for me and chocolate chaud for him.  It felt right.

If you stuck with me for that marital history, you're a dear.  This is mainly for us to remember, and it was fun.  It's good being married to K.J. Pugh.  He loves me well, and I'm grateful.

14 Years

One of the best things I ever did was edit our wedding ceremony down to 12 minutes that I can watch every year.  It is such a delight.  

This year I felt really aware of those who took part in that special day who are now with Jesus:  my piano teacher, Mrs. June, K.J.'s Pop and my Papa.  

Wedding Highlights from KJ Pugh on Vimeo.

I'm so thankful to my parents who have "given of their sons to bear the message glorious."  I'm thankful for my mom who made all the wedding day decisions because choosing things stresses me out.  I'm thankful to my dad who loves surprises.  I still laughed with joy when the cannons blew out streamers and confetti.  

And most of all I need to be thankful to a loving God, a Father who chose K.J. Pugh for me because decisions stress me out, and I couldn't have chosen so well on my own.  It's a gift to be his wife.

11 Years

What's Changed:

• Our hairstyles
• the color of KJ's jacket
• Our iPhones have more megapixels than our first digital camera.
• KJ's glasses

What's the Same

• He still waits for me to get ready.
• my mascara technique
• KJ still has that shirt.
• He still tells me I'm pretty before we go out the door.

I wouldn't want to be married to any other.

10 Pictures {Sam + Ashlea}

Does anyone else wake up with the sun during the summer months?  For the past couple of summers I find myself going through a season of waking up at 5:30 and being a bit tired all of the time.  We had a busy weekend so I was hoping to sleep a little later, but I have plenty of work to keep me busy this week as we are getting ready to travel, so maybe an early wake-up call is a good thing. 

Since there is a lot of work to do I told myself I could only pick 10 pictures to tell the story of our Saturday.

We loved getting to spend time with these guys over the weekend.

The Perfect Back-Drop for a Wedding

Watching His Bride

Rings

Vows

Kiss

Mr. and Mrs.

Cake

Dance

We had to leave as they were dancing to make the 4-hour drive home.  It was a beautiful weekend.  Marriage and the story it tells is a beautiful thing.  

10 Years a Bride

Today feels momentous.  A 10-year anniversary seems very official.  As my brother-in-law said last night, "Maybe even grown-ups will take you seriously now."  Maybe.  

I wanted to string together some of my favorite moments from our wedding ceremony this year.  There was about a 4-year span when I didn't know where the wedding DVD was, so I was relieved to find it, and I had a good time watching it over and over yesterday.  It's always been my favorite wedding, but here at the 10-year mark it all seemed especially meaningful.  

There were the faces of loved ones that are no longer here with us, and that was bittersweet.  I just felt a deep thankfulness again for our families, especially for our parents.  I'm thankful for the way they've kept their marriage vows, and I'm so thankful for the sweetness of May 22, 2004, for every word spoken to us by our fathers that day, for the heritage of faith in Jesus that they've given us, for their willingness to "give of thy sons to bear the message glorious."  I am thankful for the laughter and the memories, for the people from Arab, Sylacauga, Jackson, and Gadsden, who came to celebrate with us and rejoice with our families.  

On our wedding day KJ's grandmother, Grammy, looked at me and said, "You only think you love him now.  You can't imagine how much better it will be."  My 22-year-old self, who never gave much thought to the future, certainly couldn't imagine how good it would be.  There are times when it is hard; there are times when the love overflows.  There are moments of not knowing how to handle things, moments of exasperation, moments of great joy.  There are times of exhaustion and times of  freedom and lightness of spirit.  The most beautiful thing is the persistent grace of God toward us, giving us hope that redemption and oneness is always possible, and by His kindness we keep believing that it is and finding it.  In keeping our covenant I really do have a better picture of a covenant-keeping God.

There's a real beauty in covenant-keeping.  I pray for more and more grace to keep loving well.

I cut down 45 minutes of video into a 12-minute collection of my favorite wedding clips.  That may still be too long for anyone but our parents to want to watch, and that's okay.  Ella's favorite part is the surprise ending but mostly just my spastic reaction to the surprise ending.  My dad got me good.

  Wedding Highlights from KJ Pugh on Vimeo.

Reflections on the Weekend

My heart is full of thanks on this dark and rainy Monday morning.

The kids had a busy day on Friday.  Thursday night Ella said, "I'm actually excited to go to bed because I can't wait for tomorrow!"  Big Daddy picked them up in the morning for a round of golf and lunch at McDonald's.  They've been waiting for a chance to wear their caps to the golf course.

I had errands I needed to run in preparation for a wedding shower on Sunday, so a super-sweet friend picked up the kids and took them to a movie.  They had all kinds of fun.  Ella was dying for another chance in the photo booth.

 

After the movie the kids met me at the mall where I was buying a gift.  KJ was working late, so we ate dinner together and made a Target run for more party supplies and a few purchases for Easter.  The kids were troopers, especially sweet nap-less James.  Ella was moaning about how tired she was until I told her we needed to buy her new shoes for Easter.  She perked up because no girl is ever too tired to buy new shoes.

Yesterday was one of those non-stop Sundays that I sometimes dread, thinking they will be stressful, but they end up being so sweet and satisfying because of the kindness of the Lord.  It was a perfect, sunny and warm day here, so warm James wore shorts to church.  This was a good thing since he's had a growth spurt, and all of his pants are too short.

Spring in the South

Sunday School was such a good time of discussing God's Word as we finished our study in Hosea.  I love how the Spirit starts connecting dots from all of the other things bouncing around in my brain, giving me fuller understanding.  Earlier in the week I'd watched the Classical Baby Poetry Show again with the kids, and I was thinking of how much I loved the phrase from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43, "I love thee freely, as men strive for right."  And there it was in Hosea yesterday, "I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely...".  Love that pursues, given freely without recriminations is a beautiful thing, and that is how God loves and pursues us.

Sometimes the real-ness of the gospel story overwhelms me.  All of these things we believe by faith really happened, and the story we're a part of is just as fantastic as Thor, when a god from another world suddenly appears on the scene.  In fact, I think that's what I appreciate about super-hero movies in general, the sense that there is more out there than what we see, that we live in a world where wonderful things have happened, where John says, "The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it...".

We had a sweet time last night of showering these two with love, blessings, prayers, gifts, and advice as they prepare for marriage.  It was encouraging seeing the body of Christ all working together to make a lovely night for two that we love.

And that's a wrap for our weekend.

Year 9

Today KJ and I celebrate 9 years of marriage.  Last year I wrote down a few phrases that sum up our past years together.  When I woke up at 4:55 a.m. this morning (jet-lag anyone?) and thought about the date on the calendar, there is one thing that stands out to me above all when I look back over the past 9 years, and that is the way KJ Pugh has loved me.   

He has loved me with the same love God is using to change his heart, a love that has faithfully sought to know me and understand me, and do things that will serve me even when he doesn't understand the feminine mystique.  It's a love that has taken the form of cleaning the entire apartment and cooking dinner when I was working full-time.  Man, that spoke my love language.  

It's a love that, much against my will, forced me to sleep on the couch with earplugs so I couldn't hear Ella cry in the middle of the night, after 6 months of lost sleep.  I was losing my mind with exhaustion.

It's a love that, even in light of his own frugality, will say, "Why don't you go out and buy something?  It will make you feel better."  (A little long-standing joke of ours.)

It's a love that looks for ways to make my load easier, give me freedom and solitude, and make me smile when I'm overwhelmed by all the things I want/need to do, and there are never enough hours in the day for them all.   

It's a love that peruses my Pinterest board and finds all the places I've marked in France on Google maps.  He plans out adventures because he knows I love them.  And I love him, and I'm thankful for the grace of 9 years, for the persevering love of Christ that makes us persevere in love every day, some days better than others.  The days keep turning into years, and it is good.

Le Mont Saint Michel (and a tidbit about what came next)

Sunday night we drove into our hotel right across a field from Mont St. Michel.  It was late, and we arrived 30 minutes before they stopped serving dinner.  I'm so glad we got there in time, because we had one of the most memorable meals ever.  It was so delicious.  Expensive and delicious and French.  It was so cold and windy, and we'd been wet through on the Normandy beaches, but we had to try to set up the tripod for a shot of Mont Saint Michel at night.  We did okay.

Yesterday morning we stopped and bought some local products and then walked into Le Mont Saint Michel.  The legend from several centuries ago is that the angel Micheal told a bishop to build an abby on this mountain.  Over the next hundreds of years, it was also lived in by Benedictine monks and was also a fortress.  Many people, including French kings, made pilgrimages here.

It reminded me of the village of Bree in the first Lord of the Rings movie, narrow and steep cobblestoned streets.  The stairs keep going up and up to the abbey.  The abbey is huge and cavernous and cold, only a few of the reasons I'm glad I wasn't a Benedictine monk in the 12th century.

 a view as we were climbing up to the abbey

 The other really fascinating thing about the place is how much the tides come in once a month at the full moon.  Most of what you see there is very wet beach.

I really am always amazed at the ingenuity of men and what they can create.  The stonemasons and builders who constructed this place were incredibly inventive and smart.  

 one of the massive fireplaces

When we left there we drove to what was supposed to be one of the most picturesque villages in France.  I found it on Pinterest, of course.  Pinterest doesn't lie, because this was the most peaceful and beautiful place I've ever been.  There was hardly anyone in the village; it was so quiet, and all you could hear were birds singing and frogs croaking by the stream.  We saw ducks and a groundhog.  It's a place known for having artists and painters come, and we also saw a lot of French people camping.  I took a picture of every door and gate we passed because they were all beautiful.  Here's one picture.

I'm in a hurry this morning to get out and take pictures of the chateau where we are staying.  It is the most amazing place, and the marquess told me I could wander all over and take pictures.  It's the type of place where when we arrived she first showed us to the salon we could use.