Five years

My dear husband and I celebrated five years of marriage this past month.  If I have learned one thing about marriage these past five years (and hopefully I've learned more than that), it is that the power of a Sacramental Marriage rooted in Christ is amazing.  Takes my breath away.  It's no wonder the divorce rate is what it is in our nation, because there is no way we would survive without Christ at the center of our marriage.  So here's to many more blessed years!  (And here are a few "flashback" pics I thought would be fun to share!)

my side of the family - July 2006

his side of the family - July 2006

Pawn coolness

We are not huge TV watchers around here, but we do enjoy having cable and a DVR. I think if we didn't have cable we probably wouldn't ever watch any TV...I can't tell you the last time we watched anything network (aside from occasionally watching the local weather and an on-again off-again ~currently off-again~ relationship with The Office). And if we didn't have DVR, well, with kids we probably wouldn't watch any TV either, because it would always be either interrupted or inconvenient. Or both. (Plus don't even get me started on commercials these days...) And maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, I gave a great amount of respect for those whose households are TV-free (check out my friend Debi!). But alas, we admittedly enjoy a handful of shows/documentaries (and the occasional sporting event, namely MLB) on channels like History, Discovery, TLC, Food Network, Science, NatGeo and if it were up to me solely, HGTV as well.

One of the shows that we regularly DVR is Pawn Stars, a show featuring the family-run Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, NV and the various interesting items that make their way into the shop. I just think it's really cool, and it always holds our interest and makes for some fun conversation as we watch: guessing at item values, answering the trivia questions, and talking about some of the obscure, cool items (once they even had someone bring in a relic of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton - and no, if you were wondering, they didn't buy it, as the buying and selling of relics is forbidden) and eccentric people that come into the shop. But I digress. The whole point of this blog-post stems from the episode we watched last week called "Pedal to the Metal". In it, a man brings in a 1950's toy pedal-car in fairly rough condition. As it turned out (spoiler alert), the car ended up being worth upwards of $1000 restored...which I found to be particularly cool as our family actually owns one of these cars. It was my dad's as a child, and after I emailed him about the show he dug up this picture of him in the pedal car circa 1956.
Pretty cool. It has actually been painted since and is red now, so would probably need some restoring of its own to reach its potential worth. Not that we intend to restore or sell it or anything like that (I believe my sister has it now), but never-the-less pretty neat to know its worth. One of those random things that made this particular episode especially enjoyable.

Guess who?

Flashback, but not too far

I finally was able to take the pictures off my phone (they flashed the pics from my old phone to my new phone and put them on an SD card), so I thought I'd post a couple of my faves. The first one is of Aaron and I in April 2007, right around the time Gemma was conceived. I have always loved this picture. It was taken at a local Mexican restaurant.
And this is the first fish I ever caught, in May 2007 (I think). Look at my long hair!!!! I miss it.