Together. That's what marriage means, right?

I never did write about our anniversary. Our fourth year wedding anniversary. I know, I asked myself the same question... how has it possibly been 4 years?

But it has. Four beautiful, crazy, sometimes hair-pulling crazy, years. Years that I cherish with my husband. Years that have been some of the, scratch that, the best, years of our lives. Our children were born in the past two years. So many "firsts" that we have experienced. Buying our first home. Bringing home our first baby {then second}. Celebrating our first post college {and post-graduate school} jobs. Celebrating birthday after birthday. Holiday after holiday. All while doing this together. That's what marriage is all about, right? Doing it all together.

That means that each and every decision is made with the other person in mind. That each and every mark on the schedule has to effect the other person in one way or the other. Each and every parenting decision. Home decision. Finance decision.

Together.

And so when I think of marriage, I don't just think of wedding day and those first 8 months sans babies. I think about that also though. I think about so much more. Everything that marriage means to me. Everything that my husband means to me.

I remember when Andrew first proposed to me and I would stare down at my hand every 2 minutes. For months. Driving in the car I would look down and see a sparkly ring. I envisioned what life would be like, but I never thought past a couple weeks or months. I felt like a princess. I wished upon a fairytale. And everything was going to go exactly how I wanted it to. Life, that is. Now that I have my prince and the ring. You never do think past that. You think about your wedding and that's all. You never truly sit back and imagine what the next few years will look like. What 5 years will look like. Ten. Twenty.  It's just hard to imagine or fathom anything you haven't lived yet.

And so I was driving in the car the other day, after our anniversary, thinking about what this ring meant to me. I love it just as much as I did the day I got it. In fact, more. I love that with every year that passes, every August 15th that goes right on by, I can see it as yet another year of memories. Another year to add on.

This year we celebrated by going out to dinner. The two of us. Out to dinner. For the first time since before Graham was born. We even had a "DD" driver {my sister} and went to a restaurant close to my parent's house {where the kids were at}. We ate dinner. We talked life. We talked politics. We talked about our children. Our future. How many more we would have. Homeschooling. And so much more. We wrapped up our dinner and headed to the bar. We. Headed to the bar. Let me just let that one sink in.

We laughed a lot. Held hands. Maybe rubbed a leg or two. Talked to the bartender. Told the bartender the story of how we met and how 19 year old Becky had convinced 19 year old Andrew to take a shot with her in a basement of a house belonging to who knows who on campus. And he did. Only later, I would find out that he hated shots and hated vodka. So naturally, the bartender convinced us we had to take a shot together.

For memory sakes.

We did. And maybe we even took another. And then we ended the night, were home by 10, gave the children kisses and off to bed we went.

The next day was August 16th. Although one would think that our anniversary was "technically" over, to me it is one that never ends. Everyday that we live our lives will be a constant reminder of the day we said our vows and made the commitment to do all things in life, together.

Four years down, only 70+ more years to go.