Don't Blink.

It is our wedding day. 

The music swells, the crowd stands, we smile. We hold hands, trying to breathe deep and take it in. "It goes so quickly!" people say, so we try to soak it up and hold on to memories. We say vows we have worked on for hours, vows we struggle to remember in the moment, as it already feels so fleeting. We hear a message, we kiss, we are married. We are somehow down the aisle, past the crowd again, and inside, without really remembering how we got there. We are married.

We face a world of possibility, of wonder, of dreams yet to come true.

We wonder what our children will look like. We wonder if we will make it through the end of college with degrees without going into debt. We wonder how many babies we will have, and if we will be those people who have babies before their first anniversary. We wonder if we will have a future in ministry or a career with the forest service. We wonder if we will decide to live on the east coast or the west. We wonder if we will get a dog or if Carson will win Lindsay over and convince her to get a cat. We wonder if we will become a two car family.

With each day that passes, we see our "what ifs" and "I wonders" turn into real life.
We discover that we can really only wonder, only dream, because real life is full of things beyond what we might have imagined.

We have been told to take it all in, and we do, trying not to blink so that we don't miss out. 

We don't know yet that the tiny shack we will live in for our first few months will harbor sweet memories along with an aggressive colony of sugar ants. We don't know that we will join a church where we will thrive and grow and learn. We don't know that Carson will get pneumonia on his 24th birthday, just a few days before our first Christmas. We don't know that we will live in the Reilly building where we will make lifelong friendships as we spend hours each week cleaning the church. We don't know that our long walks downtown will be full of conversation and plans about the future. We don't know but we wonder about a career in fire fighting for Carson.

We blink, and we have been married a year. 

We don't know that in that year, Carson will break his foot doing routine exercises on the fire crew, and begin to think seriously about academia. We don't know that we will be so obsessed with saving money that we won't go home for Christmas and will also not be able to fly out for our friends' wedding. We don't know that we will regret not going to that wedding and that we will decide that we will do our best in the future to make those memories and to be there for the people we love. We don't know that Carson will apply to lots of grad schools and get into a few, but that the tiny school in Ohio that we kept forgetting about will be the one that sends the reminder emails and offers tuition with a stipend.

We blink and two years have passed. 

We don't know that just four days after our second anniversary, Lindsay will discover she's pregnant, the morning of graduation. We don't know the heartbreak that summer will bring. We don't know that Lindsay will be in four weddings this year. We don't know that we will feel so welcomed even before we get to Cleveland. We don't know that we will visit just one church and that we will quickly join that church and will grow and learn about community in a way we never have. We don't know that Cleveland winters make Spokane winters feel like summer. We don't know that not too long before our third anniversary, Carson's brother and his family will begin to foster three precious girls, girls we hope and pray for, and who also open our minds to the possibility of foster to adopt. We don't know that Carson will finally cave and go to an eye doctor in this year, and will finally be able to tell that trees have leaves again when he gets his new glasses.

We blink and we have been married three years. 

We don't know that in this year, we will fall in love with a city that has a curiously bad reputation. We don't know that we will make a bucket list and explore as much of that place as we can. We don't know that we will feel very much at home in Cleveland, and decide that we will probably stay. We don't know that of the doctoral programs Carson has applied to, that one in Florida will offer him a position. We don't know that we will tell all our friends that we are planning to turn it down, only to pray about it really hard and surprise everyone with the news that actually we feel like a move down South seems like the right decision (still sorry about that, friends!). We don't know that in this year, we will find a great doctor who seems to have the answers, and then a few months later lose our third baby. We don't know that we will grieve once again, maybe more than we did before as we fear a future that we had not expected.

We blink and we are at our fourth anniversary.

We don't know that Carson will graduate with highest honors with his MA (although we are not remotely surprised). We don't know that we will be sadder about leaving Cleveland, a city we will live in for only 22 months, than we were about leaving Spokane, our home of four years. We don't know that we will really struggle to find a church in Tallahassee for over a year. We don't know that in that time, we will spend lots of time traveling to see friends and family in the South, now that we are within driving distance. We don't know that we will begin to see the necessity of the church body in a way we probably couldn't if we'd found a church right away again. We don't know that we will really enjoy being part of a school with a football team that is, for that year at least, undefeated. We don't know that garnet and gold, which color the streets of Tallahassee, will find its way into our wardrobes and stuck on our car. We don't know how nice it will be to be in warmer weather, a much needed thaw after the cold of Cleveland. We don't know that Carson will discover how very much he likes the beach, and that he will meet Mickey Mouse for the first time. We don't know that this year will pass with no pregnancies, no babies, and that we will grow as we learn to deal with that.

We blink and we have been married five years. Half a decade!

We don't know, although we hope, that this will be the year that we do find a church in Tallahassee. We don't know that we will be so refreshed by finding a church, by finally having good friends, that we will begin to settle down. We don't know that before we do, we will get to travel all over the place again to see friends and visit new places. We don't know that our car will hit invisible things when we are driving in Georgia and that our tire will go flat (three times!). We don't know that Lindsay will accept a new job opportunity that is wildly out of her comfort zone and yet will feel much more "her". We don't know that Carson will lose three grandparents within this year, and that two of them will decide right before their deaths to spend those last few breaths on earth as followers of Jesus, joining the third in glory. We don't know that after months of waiting and years of discussing the possibility, that Carson will be accepted as a Fulbright finalist to Germany. We don't know that we will visit a doctor who will give us hope and give us a plan as we seek answers for the future of our family.

We blink and it is six years later. 

Five.

Well, we turned five today.

Five years ago, we were hoping the rain would hold off (it rained an hour before the ceremony, delaying it... but then the sun came out). We were saying our vows and nervously standing in front of a crowd of people. We were laughing, dancing, stuffing cake in each other's faces. We were promising things we knew we didn't understand, talking about a life we knew nothing about.

As you say the words "in good health and bad" you don't know if that's going to mean colds or cancer. "For better or for worse" might mean long years of grief, or great happiness and blessing. You don't know if "for richer or poorer" means penthouse or poorhouse. What might "loving and cherishing" look like if something happens to one of you? You don't even know if "as long as we both shall live" will be 75 years or if something will happen to one of you much sooner.

When you get married, or really when you do anything new, it's sort of like signing on to jump out of an airplane. You sign the wavers, make the promises, get in the plane, and then just sort of go for it. I know that's probably a horrible comparison, but my point is that when you get married, you can't predict the future. You know the person you're marrying, know enough about them to decide that it's a good idea, but there's a lot of "leap of faith" involved.

If five years ago I had been given a glimpse of my life today, I think I would be surprised.

We've had four different addresses, have changed time zones three times, have a total of three degrees between us, with two more in the works, have had two cars (both Civics). We've changed in our opinions about TV, about the Church, about education, about grief, about activity. We have friends on every continent, in every US time zone, have church families that we love and miss and wish could maybe all move wherever we go. We have moved to new places together just the two of us three times (Spokane doesn't count), and learned that it is good to have people in our lives more than just the two of us (guess we won't be moving to an isolated cabin in the mountains anytime soon).

We have agreed to disagree about cats, licorice flavored ice cream, toppings on pizza, the idea of playing board games, and which is the correct way to install toilet paper. We have discovered that grocery shopping together is much better than not (accountability), that a walk in the evening is a great way to unwind, that we don't have to go out on "date night", that we can complete projects together without anyone committing murder, that cleaning the house together is more efficient, and that having a day off each week as "our day" is pretty important.

It really does seem that five years is both much longer than it seems while also feeling like we just got married a month ago. We've both changed and grown, and naturally our relationship has too. At just five more years down the road, I'm sure we'll have morphed into different people again, and I can't imagine what 50 years from now will look like. 

Here's to many decades more!

Our Engagement Photos

Once upon a time, Carson proposed, we got engaged, and we started planning a wedding. One by one, we checked things off the massive to-do list, and one of those things was to take engagement pictures.

 We took these the day after my birthday (364 days after the first time he asked me out) in 2010 and I'd sort of forgotten about them, but I'm working on a project that involves going through old pictures, and I came across these ones again. 

They aren't my favorite pictures of us, but they're fun to look at. 

Some thoughts, when going through them:

- I should have planned what we were going to wear a little better. I bought the dress the day before and it really makes me look like a lumpy frog (not necessarily in these pictures, but certainly in general). The color is great, but I kind of hate this dress (yes, I still have it). 

- Carson's shoes - this was actually a long-standing debate until I nipped it in the bud, but he thought that white tennis shoes were equal to dress shoes. They are not. 

- My shoes - were the only dressy shoes I packed, so they had to work. They hurt my feet, so I don't have them anymore but I loved them because they looked like jelly shoes.

- Carson's hair... got cut the next day. It was a busy time. 

- My makeup... I should have gone by the rule of "wear more so it shows up on camera". It's okay though. And I remember really debating if I should have worn my hair curly that day. 

- I don't think I look like myself, which is fine, but I can't figure out why. I think I may have been sick, so that's a factor in these pictures. It was also March and cold, so it could have been more of a "sick of winter" kind of sickness.

Double-chin, and my nose looks wide but I like this one.

No idea what was going on here.

Fake smile on my part. 

This is Carson's favorite picture. We sent this picture with half of our invites (the other half got my favorite picture). I don't like this one in the slightest but Carson still has one in his wallet.

Carson's idea. He had lots of ideas like this and would have preferred only pictures like this. We actually printed some of these out and sent them with our invitations, but only to very close friends. His roommates had this picture up on their fridge with all kinds of commentary, with good reason. 

Our eye color stands out and that's all I can say.

I wish we'd chosen this one because now I think it's one of the better ones, but we didn't. 

THE SHOES.

I like this one too.

I don't know why I'm barefoot here. Maybe I thought it wouldn't be in the picture? Maybe it's on purpose?

This is the one I loved, and the one we sent out in half of the invitations. We appear very airbrushed and whitened and I have a feeling that's one of the reasons I liked this one. 

This was a fun little walk down memory lane. It really wasn't that long ago, but I feel like it looks like it was, judging from what we wore and how we looked. I think that's really one of the big reasons to get engagement pictures in the first place - they may not be the best pictures of your whole life, but they document an important stage. 

And for us, since our families are on opposite sides of the country, it was slightly practical we wanted our guests and invitees to have a visual and be able to say "Ah, THAT's the bride/groom!" when they met Carson/Lindsay at our receptions or wedding. These were printed out on big sheets of paper, cut individually (we sent several hundred invitations so this was not fun) and tucked in with our wedding invitations.

Oh, and we still have a million of little wallet sized versions that we sent with our invites if anyone wants one. We over-printed.

Second Year Celebrations

We were away the weekend before our anniversary, so we made a pit stop at home, and then headed to the Davenport Hotel for a night. It's about a fifteen minute walk from our front door, but it was still nice to celebrate our anniversary somewhere special. 

This is in the elevator.

Not the most inspiring view, but it was still fun to watch people nine stories down below. You can't see our apartment in this picture, but it's basically diagonally behind that white building on the right. 

I wanted steak, so we did Outback take-out. We didn't have two chairs, so we ate it on the floor of our room. And yes, Carson got a salad while I had steak and potatoes. 

Cotton candy for our "cotton" anniversary. He also got a bow tie and dress socks, all of which sound really boring, but he did want it!

A box full of cotton things... everything from socks and tshirts to beach towels to cotton balls. He really went with the theme. 

The shower

We made toasts. None of them were serious... things like "and here's to two more years!" were said. 

Leaving... 

And on our actual anniversary...

I tried on my wedding dress and am proud to say that it not only fits, but it was too big!  

 Not sure how that happened, but it was a pleasant surprise. 

So we had John take a few pictures of us, two years later. 

I might make it a tradition to try the dress on every year, just because I like it so much :) 

 Carson brought me these flowers and a card on our anniversary. He's sweet. 

Two Years

It's been two years since we became Mr. and Mrs. Bay. 

I really don't even know what to say about that. 

It was a wonderful day, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but I'm glad that it was the first day of the rest of our lives and not necessarily the highlight of our entire life together. 

That was the point from which the rest could grow.
It was the start of everything else.

On that day, we loved each other more than ever, but nothing compared to what we have now. 

I love thinking back to our wedding. It was perfect in its imperfections. 

But more than that, I am happy to live life with this man. To have memories that are not all about me in a white dress. I'm thankful for the failure and laughter and things that only we can reminisce about. I'm thankful that we live life together as our own family unit, and not as separate entities. 

Life isn't perfect and wonderful all the time, but I'm glad it's with him. 

My Favorite Wedding Detail

One of the details I loved the most from our wedding is our programs. 

The story behind them is one of pure laziness, if I'm being honest. I knew that I planned to make them, but I really really dislike Microsoft Publisher and didn't really like the options I had there. I've seen plenty of super cute programs but I didn't think that I had the patience to complete the necessary 200. 

So instead, I wrote the programs... but I did NOT write each one individually. I wrote them out on copy paper, had others check for mistakes (they missed one... a missing apostrophe that drives me crazy now), and then someone copied them onto cream colored cover stock paper, double sided. 

Someone else punched two holes in each one and tied ribbons. I think there was a group of people who did this but I have no idea now who they were or even when it was done (the week of the wedding, I think). No idea either what I was doing during that time. Thank you, whoever you were!

It's all self-explanatory, but the cover said our full names and wedding date.

The left side of the first page had the names of our parents and wedding party (the missing apostrophe is on this page. Can you spot it?). I wanted to put a detail about each person in the bridal party, but there wasn't space so I wrote how we knew them. Given time and space, I would have included a brief description of our relationship to each person. That's the one thing I'd have changed.  My nosy self loves to know why each person was chosen for a wedding party so I assumed I couldn't be the only one.

The right hand side of the page had the order of ceremony:

Prelude music (my best friend's little brother played violin)

Seating of parents and grandparents (Air on G String, Bach - this is my mom's favorite, so it was appropriate that it was playing as she came down the aisle)

Bridal Party (Butterfly Waltz, Brian Crain)
Bride's Entrance and Presentation (Canon in D, Pachelbel)
Congregational Declaration of Consent (this was from the Book of Common Prayer. It is basically a charge to the people attending the wedding to keep us true to our wedding vows.)
Prayer
Two Songs: (chosen because of their Gospel-centeredness)
In Christ Alone
Before the Throne of God Above
Reading from Isaiah 42:5-8 
*Not in our program because it was a surprise of sorts - Carson gave a little sermon on what marriage is as a picture of Christ and the Church and how he hoped ours would illustrate that
Sermon
Exchanged vows and rings (we wrote our own based on passages of Scripture)
(Instead of a unity candle:)
"Jesus Paid It All", sung by my sister and her fiance. During this time our parents came up and we all prayed together.
Closing Prayer
Pronouncement of Marriage

I included the lyrics to the two songs. My hand almost gave out because I kept messing up halfway through and having to start over.

Our vows.  We wrote these out because they weren't the traditional vows and we wanted people to hear them (we didn't have a microphone). Carson pretty much wrote them and I offered input and vetoed ideas. 

Finally, on the back, we included a schedule for the reception. My reasoning in doing this was so that people knew the kind of time frame they were looking at, so they didn't leave before it was all over.
We kept it short because we still wanted there to be a lot of people there when we left, in case you're wondering why our 5pm wedding ended at 8. We stayed longer than the schedule says, by the way. And apparently after we left, many of our guests stayed another three hours!

So those are our programs, and more details about those than you thought were possible for simple pieces of paper!