Quarter of a Century...

Yes, it's true. A couple months back I turned 25... I officially am now closer to 50 yrs old than I am to my birth... Seems about right... There is a phenomenon that many people experience throughout their life, for a number of reasons, that I like to call 'premature feeling aged'. Here is a prime example. Shawn and I are newly weds at 25, but when people meet us they assume we are either younger than we are, or have been married longer than we have... I can understand why, many people marry at a younger age, having found the one that want to spend the rest of their life with. It just so happened that it took me 24 yrs and 7 mos to bump into the man who convinced me that marriage was a thing that he and I would be great at. Shawn. I love you and am so happy that we met how, and when, we did. Me, on a date with another guy. You, planning a bonfire that would rouse the fire department. I am so excited to spend the rest of our lives together...

I can't wait till we end up looking like this.

 

I remember once saying to my sister, that I was okay with being single but I was ready to find the guy I would marry. She told me that, it doesn't matter if you meet each other when you are 19, 24, 29 or whatever age. Once you do meet them, your life together begins then, and until then, just enjoy the life you have now and don't waste any of it pinning away. Thanks to her and my amazing friends, I did just that. I enjoyed every moment I could, being single, employed and free. And perhaps, if Shawn and I had met any earlier I would never have been able to experience some of my favorite memories up to now including (in no particular order)

Time to develop Monk Obsession

Spend Chritmas with my Aussie family
Will forever be greatful for their role in my
surgery recovery... xoxo

Endless beaches with my girls
and realizing that you can be best friends with
differing religions if you all are open to respecting each
others beliefs... You were such inspirations to me girls 

Experiencing a legit soccer/football match
in South America

Experience Team Canada win Hockey Olympic Gold
amidst hundreds of fellow Canadian in the middle
of a tiny island in Thailand at 3 am

Falling in love with my brown babies

Traveling Europe with my sisters
and realizing, too late, how much I wished
I had actually taken ANY foreign languages

Life in the middle of YSA madness

and realizing just because you are in love with 

someone doesn't mean you should marry them

Sometimes you have to hold out for 

3 more years...

Grad Trip #2: CUBA

Grad Trip #1: Vegas!

Pick our own guinea pig to roast and chop up for
dinner... yum

Summer fun with my girls

Experience two of my sisters getting married

Finding out that I am strong enough to
come back from braking my back
and rocking a sweet as... back brace

Overcoming our initial response and climbing the
Tongario Crossing in New Zealand

Volunteering in Orphanages.... Amazing
Building life-time relationships.... Priceless

Venturing outside of the southern alberta
bubble I have lived and loved for so long
and time to decide what I wanted in life
and who I wanted to be

Building a love/passion for history,
traveling and all things beautiful

Find a floor of nurses that I just love and
a job that makes me sad to leave

The years I had living with, and doing
EVERYTHING
with my best friends, my sisters

Defying the Roman Gods...

Graduating with a degree in Nursing

Realizing that I could be a mom one day.
And maybe not all of our kids will be
biologically ours. 

Taking on new adventures/challenges daily and learning
that you can live with only 6 pairs of clothing and you
don't have to wash your hair/body every day... haha...
That can be a good and bad thing... 

I was blessed with a good life before I got married, and I am now blessed with a fantastic husband and the chance to start a new life together in Saskatoon...