A note to my hubby

I've been following a blog written by a couple who attends my awesome church. Our church happens to have an amazing pre-marital ministry, which has made me and my husband stronger together. Over the past year, we've had our share of struggles.. but through it all, we've been prepared to communicate well and most importantly to put the other above ourselves, and 2nd to our Lord Jesus Christ..

I wish I had taken a picture to make it a really awesome blog post...

Dear hubby,

Today I opened my lunch and saw “cut-up” cherry tomatoes in my “eat grass until we go on vacation” salad! The attention you put into even the smallest things and the fact that you humor my crazy diet are just two of the reasons why I love you so much!

Love,

Wifey

Death and Hope

It's been a crazy few months since my last post. They say that your first year of marriage is tough. But over the last few months, Darren and I have experienced two significant losses: our friend David in April, and Darren's grandfather this past Saturday...Two very different lives but beautiful in their own right...

David
On April 15th, we lost a good friend of ours, David to a 10 month battle with lung cancer. David was the first our my friends from Ross who met Darren and welcomed him with open arms. I have great memories of David, whether it was going to football games with him and his wife Grace in Ann Arbor, or asking him for recommendations on whatever gadget I was about to buy, or telling him about this new amazing guy I was dating.. My memories of David span Dallas, Ann Arbor, Chicago, and Napa. David was truly a great friend. Most importantly, he loved the Lord and treasured his wife like no other.

I have this clear memory of telling David about my acceptance to work at Frito-Lay. I explained that I made my decision based on whether or not I should work in a big city like Dallas or work in a small city in Michigan. And I remember David saying, "It's better this way.. the fewer options the better. God's direction is clear."

When I think of David, I think of Jeremiah 17:7-8:

"But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."

David's memorial was beautiful;anchored by his incredibly strong, beautiful and 36-week pregnant wife. People shared about David's love of food, gadgets, and the great friend he was. God's presence was known as the gospel was shared to the hundreds of those in attendance...

Grandpa
Early Saturday morning, Darren lost his grandfather, Anthony Antoniello who was 91 years old. Grandpa had had a long battle with Parkinson's. When I met grandpa, he and grandma were on their way to moving to assisted living. We went to his funeral today, which was small but beautiful. All 5 grandchildren were in attendance and each family member spoke about memories about Mr A- his love of family, children, his corny jokes, and his love for the "love of his life" Mrs. Antoniello.

Darren shared about how grandpa was his friend, even as a child, and he shared that he knew his grandpa was in a better place. He also shared about the following verse he shared with grandpa on his last two visits to hospice that encouraged everyone to remember that Grandpa's body was only temporal..

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

My favorite memory of Grandpa was just two weeks ago when we were visiting him in hospice; knowing that it would be the last time we'd see him. Darren had his arm around me and we were hugging each other. Grandpa said, "I see that you two are still madly in love, just like me and your grandma after 67 years of marriage."..

Our hope in the Lord
Two very different lives, two very different funerals..one was "too soon" and because of that, tragic... the other was "expected" yet sad because of the big hole left in our hearts..

Yet through all of this, we know that God has a great plan. We know that both David and Grandpa are in a better place in which they are without pain and without suffering at the feet of Jesus basking in his glory.

It really has brought Darren and I closer together. If anything it reminds us to not rely on each other but to keep our focus on Jesus and his work through the gospel...

1 Peter 1:3-9
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

Lord, we rest in our hope in You. May you continue to reveal yourself to us..

More Catching Up

One of the things I will always appreciate about my parents is teaching me to love travel..to see God's creation whether it be national parks or different countries. We always grew up traveling afar.

Well, it just dawned on me that I never posted our honeymoon pics.

Darren organized our whole trip by picking Hawaii, which he had never been to. We decided from the recommendation from a lot of friends that we would take a cruise and make it sort of our floating hotel.

So we had a great few days in Waikiki at the Moana Surfrider, which is an awesome hotel. Thanks Starwood points! We had a great time eating and walking up Diamond Head. Darren loved Pearl Harbor.

And then we began our cruise. Highlights include the Haleakala Crater in Maui, and sushi at the Ritz, Volcano national park and black sand beaches on the Hilo side of Hawaii, Kona Brewing Company, and seeing the Grand Waimea canyon and helicopter ride in Kauai. Such good times! I can't wait until we go again!

Words of Affirmation

My awesome husband knows that words of affirmation is my love language. So he's always thinking of creative ways to give me words of affirmation.

This week he's gone for a digital conference for a total of 6 days from start to finish (Thursday-Tuesday). Since there are six letters in my name, he's decided to send me a text starting with a letter for my name.

My good friend encouraged me to record it so I would always remember. Check back for updates

M- I Miss You!
A- Stands for your new last name, but also stands for Amazed, which is how I feel when I think about how lucky I am to be married to you
I- Is for Independence; that is to say freedom in Christ, which you display everyday in your love, service and care and the way you are a wonderful helper suitable
S- Stands for second, which is the amount of time that goes by between my thoughts about you
I- stands for Incredible, which is the type of wife and Christian woman you are. It also stands for I love you!
E- Eternity, which is what we'll spend with Christ. But I'm so glad we're together in this life!

Catching up on photos - Ann Arbor

Just wanted to post a few things on what we've done since our awesome honeymoon, which I recognize that I still need post photos of..

In November, Darren and I got to go to Ann Arbor. Darren had never been, and I had to go for recruiting so we decided to make a weekend out of it. We went to the Big House and saw Michigan get trampled by Wisconsin. But we also went to several brewpubs- Jolly Pumpkin (which is one of Darren's top 10), Arbor Brewing Company (which I had gone to in business school but never realized it was a big brewery in the beer world), and Grizzly Peak (still one of my favorites for food).

Also, I took Darren to Ashley's which made him super happy since he got to try a ton of Michigan beers.

I love the life of being a newlywed.

.

How's married life?

The age old question that we’ve both gotten since September..My typical answer is "Good. Marriage is awesome" and if I have more than a second, I say "It's Great! Marriage is more fun but it’s a lot more work, but totally worth it."

And most of my single friends, ask how marriage is hard or how it is a transition. So without further ado, top reasons that make marriage hard, and the top fun things about marriage.

Some of the things that make marriage hard:

1.Expectations – Whether it is an expectation that I have for myself or expectations I have of him, expectations are always there and often they’re not met. Often times, they’re not spoken and I find myself having to figure out what my expectations were in the heat of the moment

2. Lack of quality time – We've just recently figured out but both our primary love language is quality time, which is extremely challenging give two demanding careers. We've had to learn to be intentional so that in the limited time we have together, we can be focused on each other. I'm guessing it will constantly be refined as life continues to change.

3. Our sinful nature- Whether it is pride, people pleasing/avoidance, or our tendency to get defensive, we've seen how ugly our sinful nature can be and how easily it can hurt the other person. "Owning our sin" and asking each other for forgiveness has been tough.

4. Communication- As much as I’d like for it to be, my husband isn't a mind reader nor am I. So we've learned to communicate, and more importantly, we are learning to listen to each other in a loving, open way.

Here are some of the things that have made marriage a ton of fun:

1. Being each other's biggest supporters- Nothing gives me greater joy than seeing my husband in his element with his jr high boys that he serves. Likewise when I shared my story at church, my husband was the proudest person in the room.

2. Serving each other- Learning to serve one another and knowing that you’re putting the other person ahead of yourself has been completely rewarding. My husband serves me all the time, he makes my lunch, he takes out the trash, and he takes care of the dog in the morning. We love serving each other.

3. Becoming students of each other- We both have loved learning more and more about each other. By no means, have we figured each other out yet, but it’s been fun getting to know each other more. Darren loves that I ordered a Live Oak Big Bark Amber on my own the other day.

4. Forgiving each other- Learning to forgive ourselves and each other is at the heart of our marriage. If God was able to forgive us for our sins, we must learn to forgive each other. Working through conflict has been one of the most fruitful things for our marriage.

So yes, in the wise words of my friend Christine who signed my wedding guestbook: "marriage is hard work but it is SO MUCH FUN!" So true..and we're not even six months in!

To plan or not to plan?

I have neglected my blog..but lately I've had some thoughts. So I wanted to post some stuff as it's been floating around in my head.

So here goes. On September 11, 2010, I married my soul mate, my best friend, and the godliest man I know. And one of the questions I've gotten is: was all the planning worth it?

It was over nine months of planning (yes, we started planning our wedding before we were actually engaged).

Below are reasons to not plan a wedding:
1. Time consuming
2. Ridiculous spreadsheets
3. Stress in managing expectations

But there are a lot of reasons for enduring all the work to plan your wedding:

1. There is something inherently amazing about having everyone you love in one room together witnessing your special day. If, for nothing else, this is reason enough to have a wedding.



2. You let you have people see a glimpse of you on your wedding day. Some of the personal touches we put in our wedding included:

A guestbook with polaroids pictures that my friend designed. We wanted to be sure to remember everyone that came on our wedding day.

Lakers references for me.

Mavs cookie cake as Darren's grooms cake.


Our friends performing a song written specifically for us on our wedding day called "Love Full and Complete" written by Carina

A cookie bar honoring Darren's (and mine) love of cookies

Homebrew honoring Darren's love of beer by his good friends at Lakewood Brewing Company

We served wine that we made over a year ago (a gift Darren gave to me for my birthday); and our friends signed the bottle

3. You get to make whatever message to those you love about your wedding.

For Darren and I, we wanted to make sure that Christ was at the heart of our wedding. So we chose some Christian contemporary songs about for our wedding including:

- Unfailing Love by Chris Tomlin for when our parents came down the aisle
- Love Never Fails by Brandon Heath for bridesmaid's processional
- O Happy Day by Tim Hughes for our recessional
- When I Say I Do by Matthew West for our first dance

Our friend Terrence officiated our wedding and wanted him to communicate God's faithfulness in bringing us together and Christ and his church at the heart of marriage.


You get to serve Christ by being an example of his love for the church:

This picture may be one of my favorites. We had just finished the ceremony and we had just walked out of the recessional, and I asked him to kiss me before everyone else got there. It was a mix of happiness because we were finally husband and wife, and relief because it was all over. It was one of those moments we'll always remember and we're so glad a photographer captured the moment

So yes, at the end of the day, it's completely worth "to plan". I wouldn't have changed a thing even amongst the ups and downs. Most importantly, I married the love of my life and God was honored.