Cheatham Chatter: Seven Years

Seven years ago today I married my husband Michael! I cannot believe it has been that long since we stood before our closest friends and family in a country church and vowed to love and respect each other until the day we die. I think that is the reason I love this time of year so much. It reminds me of the love we felt for each other that day seven years ago that has remained to this day. Michael is my best friend and my biggest cheerleader. He is the rock of our family now and he is a hard-worker. I think back to who we were as a couple seven years ago and I think it is true how some people compare true love to an old bottle of wine. It just gets better over time and sweeter.

Now that is not to say that we haven't had our hard times. But the hard times have made us stronger and who we are as a couple today and has taught us so much about each other. I am happy to say that we have learned from our mistakes over the years.

Here is a little run-down of the highlights over the last seven years:

1. We got married on June 12, 2004 at our church. A pop-up thunderstorm boomed outside the church during the ceremony but was gone by the time of the reception and left us a beautiful rainbow. See picture below. We honeymooned in Destin, FL and returned to live in the single-wide trailer (rent-free) that my parents owned next door to them.

2. The first 2 years of our marriage I was working part-time and in school full-time at Austin Peay State University. Michael works full-time at Ft. Cambpell Army Base for a contractor. We were busy setting up house at the trailer.

3. Here are the hard-times. In our second year of marriage we were having some financial difficulties even though we lived rent-free. Part of it was that I did not bring in a lot of money and we both still had our seperate checking accounts and we were living paycheck-to-paycheck. We basically didn't talk about money. We found the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and decided to become debt-free! We knew we were in trouble when Michael was taking out a small loan to pay for Christmas presents (because we didn't have the money) and I didn't even know about it! Needless to say we got on the same page and started working on becoming debt-free.

4. In May of 2006 I graduated from APSU with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting. I began working full-time at my current job and started bringing in more money.

5. We took a vacation to Asheville, NC to visit the Biltmore. I am sad to say that we didn't do very many vacations as a couple without kids. We were just too concentrated on becoming debt-free and saving money.

6. In October of 2007 I found out that my current job (and my division) at work was going to be dissolved and I was offered a position at the company that was taking over our block of business. The offer was one we could not pass up. I got to work from home doing the same type of work for more money and WAY better benefits!! So in January 2008 I began my new job working from home everyday!

7. We became debt-free in 2008!!

8. We went into debt for a house! We had been looking on and off for a while and found a house that we didn't want to pass up. We moved in October of 2008.

9. Another very hard time.....In March of 2009 I had a mis-carriage in my first pregnancy. It was at about 7 weeks. We both took it pretty hard but we knew that the Lord would provide when the time was right.

10. In October of 2009 we found out we were expecting again!!! We waited a while before we told very many people though.

11. July 21, 2010 we became parents to our sweet baby boy Jonah!!

Here are some pics of us through the years.