Our 2nd Year of Marriage

Our second year of marriage was really lovely! Compared to how many curve balls our first year threw us with changing jobs (twice for EACH of us), new schools, TWO moves and all the “did that seriously just happen”s in-between we learned how to lean on each other as the best source of stability and comfort! Which led us into our second year which was smooth sailing!

We spent this year settling into our new home in Baltimore, spending time with old friends, enjoying family time as much as possible and just enjoying “normal”. We LOVE the house that we’re renting in Rodger’s Forge and also love that we can walk around the neighborhood with our dogs any time of day! We LOVE walking to get ice cream or a smoothy or Starbucks, and love that we have spent a lot of time with great JMU friends! We’re loving going to Raven’s tailgates and having easy things to do with friends when they visit like Orioles games. We’re LOVING our jobs as Sterling gets more and more settled into teaching and I re-enter the public ed world. 🙂 We definitely still miss Richmond/Virginia as a whole, especially the church we love, our RVA friends, being close to Sterling’s family and my job/team in Henrico County but were making the most out of time in Baltimore and trying our best to live fully in the moment!

In our second year of marriage, we also had big successes! We paid off all of our debt (except for student loans – still chipping away), started working towards a big emergency savings plan and cut our credit cards and moved to a cash-only budget! We also took a big trip to Mississippi with friends for an Ole Miss football game. Sterling also had a big win this year getting me interested in college basketball through March Madness which was no easy task. I’m starting to understand the rules and definitely enjoyed the dance, even if it was to see him FREAK out over UVA’s big win!

For our anniversary this year we decided, kind of spur of the moment, to take the MARC train down to DC for the day and spend quality time together being tourists at the mall. With no real plan, we jumped on the train, landed at Union Station, took the metro to the National Mall and roamed. We were completely spontaneous and it was really refreshing! We went to the National History Museum and then walked to all the monuments. Sterling gets a big kick out of reading placards so we soaked up as much of that as possible! I think my favorite part of the day was going to the Lincoln Memorial right around golden hour. The light pouring over the Washington Monument was so beautiful and from the top step of the Lincoln Memorial, we had a perfect view. Walking around to the side of the memorial it instantly felt like we had the place to ourself!

Our first year of marriage was a year where we learned even more about relying on each other and how to get through whatever life throws at us. Our second year of marriage has felt like the year of comforts, quiet simple moments and dreaming for our future. We’ve grown deeper as partners who purposefully seek to make intentional time for one another. For our third year of marriage, I’m praying for more and more quiet simple moments mixed in with fun spontaneous adventures like our anniversary date!

Something I cherish about our relationship that I hope never fades is our friendship. We spend even the hardest moments laughing and go to sleep every night holding hands. No matter what life throws our way – I think we’re especially blessed to have a love like this.