Ode To My Wife (in limerick form)

There once was a girl in Troy
Who was so beloved by a boy
When they walked down the aisle
He couldn't help but smile
And his heart became filled with joy

Happy one-month, my love!

Ode To My Husband (in haiku form :)

The man of my dreams

Loyal, loving, supportive

Happy 1-month, dear!

What a difference a year makes

My father-in-law Chuck aka "Mr Mac"made this same comment when they took us out to dinner when they were in town this past spring for the Easter weekend, as that Saturday night happened to be Bolivia's 1-year dateiversary :). His point was that life had dramatically changed for me, his son, and both of our families, as the Barton & I had gotten engaged in January and were in full-on wedding planning mode, in fact that same weekend we showed them the site we had chosen for our reception. And this fall, my favorite time of year, I had a bit of deja vu as we went out on a few outings just as we had done the year before, but this time it was as husband and wife, and it was pretty cool to reflect on how much life has changed since then.

This pic from last fall when we took my nephew Kieran to a fire station in Troy when they had an open house shows him looking up at "Tito (uncle) Bart" like "hey dude, that's my hat!", even though just like this year again Kieran was being stubborn/shy and not engaging in all the fun activities. Man, was it hot that day, and yet last weekend when we took both the kids to one of the open houses in Birmingham, it was a nice fall day - I've lived in Michigan all of my life and fully understand the futility of guessing the weather day to day. My niece Tanith was her usual fear-shows-weakness self as she wanted to climb up into the trucks and watch the fake fire scene, while her older brother shied into the background. And trusty sister "Tita Aimee" (who thinks she looks like the kids' nanny when she is out and about with them and any other adults) climbed over the carseats into the 3rd row of sister Debbie's Aviator to come along and hang out. I was even urging her to get in line with the other small children who were testing out the fire hose since they got to meet the handsome firefighter taking pictures, but while she may have been tempted, she didn't take up on my dare :).

Also this year on "Sweetest Day" (read: made-up Hallmark midwest holiday) just as we did on the third Saturday of October last year we decided to again visit the Lloyd Stage Nature Center in Troy, a beautiful 100 acre natural parcel that has some cool indoor exhibits for little ones, and about 2 miles of trails outdoors that are great for a short hike and taking in the fall scenery. We like the fact that we have a little sanctuary in our very own city, not too far up the street from the likes of a Target Greatland and the Somerset Collection (read: fancy mall) that my friend Rich calls my "mother ship", though I'm not quite certain why!

From changing leaves to outdoor Michigan outings to a lovely wedding to a man I love dearly, I now have more reasons to claim fall as my favorite season! Indeed, what a difference a year makes. Can't wait to see what happens next!

Once in a Lifetime

"And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"

--"Once in a Lifetime", Talking Heads

I've asked myself this question a couple of times in the past month. How did I get here? On one level, ours is a fairly straight forward, boy meets girl, boy talks to girl for hours at a mutual friend's going away party, boy takes two months to ask her out, boy and girl fall in love, boy proposes to girl, boy sells his house, boy and girl get married, kind of story.

But I don't ask that question because I don't know our story. I ask that question because the place I'm at now is not the place I thought I would be at years ago. It's much, much better. So I bring to my marriage an open mind and a deep appreciation for God's goodness to me over the years. I don't know where the journey will take us - and I know that there will be struggles - but as the song we used for our reception entrance says, "I know that God, my God, God is good." And that's how I got here.

Genesis

Perhaps you're wondering about the seemingly weighty name of our new blog, or perhaps you're wondering how my husband convinced me to do this new-fangled techy thing (its okay Karin, don't be afraid, it's just the world wide web! :). And as I often like to approach things from unorthodox angles, I'll tackle the latter first. There wasn't a lot of convincing, to be truthful, in fact most recently it was my idea that we actually do it. When our friend Jodi (first) moved to Brussels for work after I began to plan our wedding (which I will blog about more later, of course!), she half-joked that I should write a blog while doing it, but I only seriously contemplated that for about 3 seconds given my already busy schedule and the addition of wedding planning to the heap. But now that we are mostly initially settled in to our happy marriage, I think we both have a lot of things to say (read: random thoughts) both individually and as a couple (read: celebrity couple name "Bolivia"), and I thought a blog would be an interesting outlet. That and perhaps this would be one way to keep the many friends we're blessed with updated on how we're doing and what we're up to. So either life will catch up with us and we'll neglect to post often, or we'll have too much to say - we'll see how it goes, stay tuned!

As for the blog name, after partcipating in an engagement class through our church we found ourselves talking quite a bit about the discussion we had about the concept of a covenant. We wanted to embrace this, and included one of its biblical mentions (Psalm 111:9 "He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever - holy and awesome is his name") as a part of one of our readings and songs (thanks Mariam!) at our wedding ceremony. Then this idea of the commitment we were about to embark upon became not so much intimidating as it was refreshing, as if it was simply a natural progression towards this life together that we knew we wanted. Now I know marriage is not that simplistic, but the blog name reflects our mutual vows to each other, as well as our hope to honor God with our lives.

Happy reading, friends!