Well me and Josh just celebrated 5 years of marriage December 27 (yay us!) and after years of planning, took a cruise! Woo! Sadly it wasn't quite what we expected and yes, I had pretty big expectations. The food pretty bland and boring, the activities were kind of lame, and probably the biggest bummer of all...it was freezing! We thought it was going to be 80 degree weather and I packed accordingly but oooohhh noooo. I froze my butt off. On the positive side, the excursions were pretty stinkin awesome. We swam and petted stingrays (they didn't allow us to take pictures boo) and snorkeled. Then we took a bus to check out some Mayan ruins (but the guide spoke terrible english so didn't hear a word he said) but I'm not a Debbie Downer!
It was still pretty cool. I really did have a great time with Josh and I'm not disappointed we went at all.

Usually people go on vacation and trips, have a wonderful, relaxing time and the moments fade back into memories. This was more than that. Our moments melted into a time of renewing and restoration of our marriage. Along the journey of having two little boys and five years passing, I lost a little bit of myself. And as much as I tried to distinguish myself as "wife" and "mother", the "mother" in me won over by a long shot. I was starting to feel like I didn't know my husband anymore.

Hez was getting a little older but by the time I was starting to feel like I was getting some freedom back, I had another baby. The incredible responsibility of now having to raise two babies was a slap in the face. I remember distinctly when Asher was three days old, I shuffled into the kitchen, exhausted and my body buzzing with raging hormones. I stared out the window and tried to come up with a plan on how I could run away without people getting too mad at me. I knew the responsibility was going to be a lot, I knew that before I had kids. The real reason I felt so insane was that my mind was fighting to be selfish. In that moment, having children felt like a jail rather than a blessing.  The journey of "dying to self" has been a long difficult process but one that was necessary. Without God's revelation of my desire to satisfy "my self", He couldn't use me that way He intended.

Eventually I fell into the swing of things and without realizing it, stuffed any part of myself down into a deep hole. I took care of the boys day and night while Josh worked hard at about 10 different odd jobs to provide for us. I. was. exhausted. Not to name names but somebody *cough*Asher*cough* woke up every 1 1/2 hours at night. And unfortunately if you have more than one kid, the advice "sleep when baby sleeps", no longer applies. When the boys would finally go down for the night, I was "checked out". After 8 pm, any talking I did was in grunts and I would fall asleep before my head the pillow.

My husband tried connecting with me but any emotional energy I had left was already spent and I had none left to give. A marriage cannot thrive if one feels unloved by the other. It took its toil in small ways and big ways. We are very fortunate to have a relationship where we don't fight but sometimes it comes with a price of not saying anything at all. We missed each other incredibly and we've taken it up on ourselves to allow God to refine what it means to be a parent, spouse, and family. So our cruise couldn't have come at a better time. The whole trip was a blast and I haven't laughed that much in a long time. It reminded me of why I fell in love with him 5 years ago and I'm still crazy about him. So I'm raising my virtual glass and toasting to many more years of laughing together and just simply being together -CLINK-!