Friday, June 3, 2011

5 Years

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I can’t believe it’s been five years since Nate and I got married….that’s 60 months or 1825 days or 43,800 hours.  Time goes by quickly until you stop and think about how much has happened in the past five years and then you wonder if it’s actually ONLY been five years.  We were married on June 3rd, 2006 in Sacramento, California and less than a week later we were in San Francisco getting on a plane to Frankfurt to start our life together in Germany.  Nate had used up all the leave he had in order to come out for the wedding so we weren’t able to take a proper honeymoon, but when Fourth of July weekend rolled around we used that time off to head up to Berlin on our very first trip.  That was back when Spangdahlem did explore the Eifel week and gave you extra time off, the fact that we remember when explore the Eifel was awesome tells you just how long we’ve been here.  We took the train to Berlin ended up staying in an awesome hotel that was super cheap and had a great weekend.  I remember that on the way home our train was delayed and we missed our next one so they rerouted us and gave us a voucher for a taxi to get the rest of the way home, that was just one of many bumps in the road that we’ve been through together and like all the other bumps that would come in the future we shook our heads and got over the change in plans.

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That first summer in Germany we added to our family and got our sweet little puppy Jaeger.  It was a little lonely at first in a foreign country where I didn’t know anyone, but Jaeger was a great companion.

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Our first year of marriage took us to Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Hawaii, Austria, and the Netherlands where we celebrated our first anniversary.

pig fest in wittlich:

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In Brussels, Belgium:

Nate and I at Mannequin Pis in Brussels

New Year’s in Paris:

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Family vacation in Kauai:

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Salzburg, Austria:

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In the Netherlands on our anniversary:

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Our second year of marriage took us to Switzerland and Italy and then we found out we were pregnant the night before Nate left on an almost 5 month deployment to Iraq.  The deployment was hard and when Nate returned I was about 6 months pregnant and soon enough we had our very first child Reese Aspen Crandall.  For our second anniversary we left a 2 week old Reese home with my mom while we went to dinner in Bitburg.

Adelboden, Switzerland:

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Rome, Italy:

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Nate leaving for his deployment:

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Nate returning from his deployment:

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Our first child:

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Our third year of marriage was consumed with our new daughter, seriously as I’m looking through all our photos the number of pictures we took must have multiplied by ten after we had Reese.  Even with all the confusion and work of becoming new parents, we still found time to make a trip back to the States and introduce her to everyone, and travel to Poland before Nate deployed for the second time a few days before Reese’s first birthday.  We celebrated our anniversary on different sides of the globe that year but decided we would do something to make up for it the next year.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland:

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Nate’s birthday:

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Our fourth year of marriage started apart but Nate finally returned from Iraq in September and to celebrate we took a trip to Egypt for Thanksgiving.  After lots of time of on and off separation due to TDYs and trips for Reese and I to go home, we finally ended our fourth year on a good note and took a trip to Ireland just the two of us.

Nate returning home from second deployment:

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Thanksgiving in Egypt:

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Fourth Anniversary in Ireland:

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Our fifth year of marriage has been a good one, a little less complicated than some of the others since amazingly enough Nate didn’t deploy at all this year.  Shortly after returned home from Ireland we found out that I was pregnant with our second child.  In August we took a trip with our friends to Barcelona, Spain and then we were able to go home to the States as a whole family in November for Nate’s sisters wedding.  On March 2nd, 2011 we had our second child Finn Everest and now that he is 3 months old we’re celebrating our 5th anniversary probably by putting our children to bed and watching a movie.

Barcelona:

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Our second child:

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Today we begin our sixth year of marriage which will bring with it many changes including us finally leaving our home in Germany and continuing our lives elsewhere.  Whatever challenges this year brings us I’m glad to be facing them with Nate.  Here’s to another five years of adventure!

 

1 comment:

katrina hayes said...

Wow, so amazing! You have done so much and seen so much! You are so lucky to have such a great family! Congrats and of course, best wishes for the coming years!