16 years ago today I married my best friend.  I know, I know, it sounds like a Hallmark card. But just look at that cute picture of the young us.  We were happy in love with a whole future of married life in front of us.

 Brian likes to say that we didn’t know what we were getting into back then.  We were young and starry-eyed.  But I really think we both had a good idea of what marriage held for us.  He and I each had strong role models for marriage growing up.

Each of our parents demonstrated with their own marriages that marriage was really for better and for worse.  By observing our own parents through the years, we knew there were easy times for a married couple and then times when marriage was hard work.  But in the end, persevering through the hard times made the good times even sweeter.