Seven Years (+ 7 of my favorite moments from my marriage)

It was seven years ago yesterday that Corey and I said, “I do.”

There are many moments that I can’t believe that many years have passed and find myself in awe of all the life we have lived in that time. And then there are other moments where it feels like we are still newlyweds.

Last year I shared six lessons I had learned about marriage in the six years we had been married. But today – today I just want to reminisce a little about some of my favorite moments of our marriage.

Time can be cruel and we often think that we will never forget these special moments that gave us that  warm, fuzzy feeling. Yet, they do fade and can get blurred over time if we don’t take the time to write them out. So let’s do just that, today, shall we.
one.

The moment I first saw Corey on our wedding day. Does this count if we weren’t technically married for another thirty minutes? When we hired our photographers, I said that I just had to have a picture of Corey the moment they opened the doors for me that day. Everyone turns to look at the bride but she is looking at the groom – and the memory of our eyes meeting down the aisle will always be one of my favorites.

two.

When we lived in Hoboken, Corey was late coming home from work one day and he hadn’t texted me to say anything about it. It was cold and got dark so early in the winter – this was early December a couple weeks before Christmas. I was standing in the kitchen when the door opened and Corey immediately presented me with a tiny jewelry box as an early Christmas gift. Inside were the diamond earrings that I had admired the week before at the mall. They were a perfect match for the ring from my grandfather that I wear on my right hand every day. Corey is just not a detail oriented person so I was so surprised that he had really even taken notice of them enough to go back and buy them. This is back before we really had any money, too, so it was just the sweetest gift.

Three.

Corey and I went on a ski trip to Vermont with some friends he worked with the winter after we got married. Now, I am from South Carolina so I had only ever been on two other ski trips in my life and they were to places in the South than had fake snow and pretty easy slopes. On the way down the last run I fell and my ski got stuck on something off of the trail. I was exhausted and didn’t know what to do because I was stuck at such a steep part of the trail that I just started crying. Corey took off his snowboard and climbed UP the trail to rescue me.

Four.

If you’ve been here a while then you know we built our last house. We snuck in one Saturday morning a couple weeks before closing to check the progress and went upstairs to the master. After living in teeny tiny apartments for years we were so proud of this big room with its gorgeous tray ceiling. We just laid down on the carpet, holding hands, staring up at that gorgeous ceiling talking about the future we would have in that house for so long.

Five.

The moment I told him I was pregnant with Madeline is one of those moments that I will just never forget. We had stopped preventing getting pregnant but weren’t actively trying or tracking – our plan was to just see what happened for six months or so. Then, the very first month I got pregnant. I wrapped up some tiny Clemson baby shoes inside one of my own shoe boxes and told him I wanted his opinion on the shoes that I bought that day. Watching his face process the teeny tiny shoes in the box is one of those moments that will be ingrained in my mind forever and I still laugh at the shock on his face every time I watch it on video.

Six.

For my birthday last year, Corey and I went on a little staycation to the Ritz uptown for just one night. We didn’t get to take a baby moon due to some things that were going on at the end of my pregnancy with Connor so we decided to take a staycation in town instead – have a nice dinner, get a massage, sleep in. Before we left to go home we had reservations for brunch Uptown. When we got to the restaurant and I turned the corner at the top of the stairs towards our table I realized one of my friends was there. I thought it was a total coincidence for a split second until I realized that the whole table was filled with my friends and that Corey had arranged for them to all be there for my birthday and last two weeks before Connor arrived. If you know Corey you know he doesn’t do surprises well and that I always know what my birthday and Christmas gifts are ahead of time just because he can’t keep them secret so I was just completely surprised that he pulled that off.

Seven.

The moment I saw Corey hold Connor for the first time definitely makes my list for favorite moments. Because Connor was born via c-section, I didn’t get that initial skin-to-skin time I did with Madeline immediately after birth. If you’ve read his birth story, you already know that I had a reaction to the anesthesia and just felt awful in the moments leading up to his arrival. It was such a feeling of relief to see Connor passed from the operating room bassinet into Corey’s arms and then Corey carrying him over the meet me.