Happy 14th Anniversary!

14 years ago today, I married the love of my life. I, a very young 19 year old, junior in college and he, a still pretty young 23 year old, senior in college, joined our lives together in our college church on a weekend early in the fall semester of another year of college. 14 years have come and gone and I pray that we have 14 more years many times over still ahead of us.

I thought it would be fun to put together a list (of 14 of course) of things that have happened during or about our 14 years together.
#1 - We've lived in 13 different houses/apartments since we got married (the crazy thing is the 4.5 years in one of them and 2.75 years in another one, too weird!).
#2 - We have earned 5 degrees between the two of us (Russ has a BA, MA, and MDiv and I have a BA and an MDiv).
#3 - We have one beautiful daughter Damaris who is about to be 12 years old (we aren't old enough for that to be true!!!!!!) and three precious children, Jordan, Micah, and Noah, in Heaven waiting for us.
#4 - We both were ordained to the ministry in a joint service about 2 years ago. I guess that makes us "The Revds Almon".
#5 - We've come to a place where simplicity is important to us. We were able to go from needing the biggest Uhaul truck available to fitting everything for the 3 of us into a 17 foot truck. We have truly learned that possessions are not the most important thing (I'm sure you'd argue for your books though LOL!).
#6 - You are a much better cook than I am. Give me a crockpot and I'm ok, but anything else that would take me ages to figure out and probably wouldn't turn out so well, you can do without batting an eyelash.
#7 - Our marriage is one of mutuality. The respect we have for each other is a big part of what makes our marriage work even after 14 years!
#8 - Who knew that when we vowed to have and to hold in sickness as well as in health, that sickness would be such a huge part of our lives. Thank you for your constant care of me regardless of the state my body is in.
#9 - Reading has remained as important to the two of us as it was 14 years ago and we have passed our love of reading on to Damaris. She can devour a book almost as quickly as I can!
#10 - On this day 14 years ago, we could never have imagined the grief we would experience in our years together. Our three precious children, grandparents, my uncle, your mentor, and many others. God, please keep giving us strength to endure the loss we feel in our hearts daily!
#11 - Who knew how much we would love sci-fi and fantasy and that we would pass that on to Damaris. Stargate, Star Wars, Star Trek, Chronicles of Narnia, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary, just to name a few.
#12 - Even though we keep leaving, we keep ending up back in the West Texas area. Even though we're in SE New Mexico now, I won't be surprised if we go back to West Texas in the future. Unless we end up in Colorado or Canada!
#13 - Even though you are outnumbered 2 to 1 in our house, you still keeps things in a state of semi-balance with your books and football versus my pink, pink, pink! :)
#14 - So many of our hopes and dreams have come true and we still have so many that we are still hoping and dreaming of. I can't wait to look back in 14 years and see where we are then compared to where we are now and what has happened with our hopes and dreams!

My love, I cherish every day with you! Happy Anniversary Bubba!