4 Years!

I cannot believe it has been 4 years already. On Monday, Taylor and I will celebrate our 4th year wedding anniversary. As I write this post I am sitting by myself watching a movie while Taylor is at a Bachelor Party for a couple guys from high school. I guess that is one of the great things about being married for years, you get comfortable and enjoy a night out by yourself :)

I was thinking about all the great things that we have done in the 4 years of marriage. Here is a little recap:
 1st year: Taylor was doing lawns and going to SLCC for his associates degree. I was at the U of U doing my nursing prereqs and working at PCMC as a IV tech. We got married at the beginning of the summer and were able to play a lot through the summer as a newly wed couple, it was the perfect way for us to get used to marriage and get to spend a lot of quality time together. Taylor bought me my first motorcycle. We lived in a basement apartment and we did the yard/snow work to get cheaper rent. Taylor wrote up a business plan and 7months into marriage we embarked on a journey of starting our own business. In January 2009 SLCPowersports was officially start. Taylor continued lawns this year but this was his last year of lawns. He is definitely not sad that he stopped lawns. It was a great job for over 10years, it allowed us to do many things in our young married life but it is exhausting and something Taylor did not want to do forever. For our 1 year anniversary we bought our first house! It still blows me away at age 21(me) and age 22(Taylor) we were able to buy our first house. During our first year of marriage we saved as much money as we could and worked a lot. Taylor starting SLCpowersports was a huge part of our buying our house. He was extremely successful the first few months of the business, and has continued that success ever since, and that is what gave us our down payment. We also got Honda! Because we were able to buy a house we got a dog right after. We both wanted a Great Dane and so that made the decision easy. We were not ready for kids by any means so this was a great choice. We have loved having Honda, he may be a butthead and drive us crazy but he is like our child and we love him.


2nd year: I count our house and Honda as our Anniversary present even though we got them in July. After we bought the house we had to completely remodel the basement. We decided to buy a house that we could rent the basement out so that we could use it as a rental later in life and while we lived here someone could pay part of the mortgage. We spent 2 months completely gutting and remodeling the basement. We did walls, plumbing, electrical, paint, floors, etc. It was a long 2 months but it looks great. We have kept it rented out the whole three years we have lived here. It is nice to have that source of income. This Christmas we bought 4wheelers so we could go to the dunes and play around. We only went out on them twice before we sold them that summer but they were fun. I really miss having a fourwheeler. We both have dirt bikes now so that makes up for it but sometimes I miss the ease of the 4wheeler. Taylor graduated from SLCC and was granted an $18,000+ scholarship to West Minister College. He decided to go there because it would be a similar price as the U of U but the classes would be much smaller and he would rather that. The decision to go to West Minister was really a great one. Taylor enjoyed most of his classes, loved the smaller class sizes, and learned a lot of valuable real life experiences from his professors that the U would not have been able to give him. For the 2nd anniversary we bought our first boat! It was a 1999 Centurion ski boat. It was so exciting. My family goes to Lake Powell at least 2 weeks a year, Taylor's family tries to do a boating trip once a summer and Taylor and I both love being on the lake. So we went for it. We decided we should buy all of the toys we want before we have kids that way we don't have to worry about it after :) haha at least that is the excuse we used. The boat had it's problems and never had a lot of top end but it was a good boat for our first one. We sold our 4wheelers so we could get the boat. There is only so many weeks in a summer and we were both still going to school and knew we wouldn't have time for everything.

3rd year: Taylor graduated from West Minister Magma Cum Lada. In other words he graduate on the Deans list with a 3.8 cumulative GPA. He is a great student, too bad he hates school. I could never figure that out. Luckily for him, owning your own business doesn't require a masters degree or anything. The bachelor's was for his own desires to graduate and earn a degree. I was trying to get into nursing school, this year was my third try, and I didn't get in. So I decided to switch majors. I was so disappointed that I didn't get it. It had always been a dream of mine to be a nurse but the Lord has other plans for me. I researched what my credits would transfer to and found that I was only a few classes away from a degree in Human Development. I took classes through the summer so I could graduate by May. In July I found out I got into Weber Nursing School. I was not very happy. I hadn't even applied again and yet I was accepted. I was torn for weeks about what to do but decided to stick with my decision to switch majors. I was able to graduate with my degree in Human Development and Family Studies this May. Now Taylor and I are both college graduates. I am going back for my Child Life Certificate but then I will be officially done. Taylor has been running SLCPowersports and it has grown every year! He has had such tremendous success! I know for a fact that this is what his career is supposed to be and that the Lord has blessed him with amazing talents to live this dream and be a successful business owner. It is not easy being a business owner. It is a lot of work, responsibility, exhaustion and so forth but it is very rewarding as well!

4th year: I am so excited to see what this year brings. Hopefully our dreams will continue to come true. I am not going to say these years have been easy or a cake walk. We have had our share of successes and disappointments. We have had good days and bad. But I know that I love Taylor very  much and am so excited to share an eternity with him, through all the good and the bad. The last three years have brought so many dreams to life.

I love you Taylor! I am so glad that I met you 5 1/2 years ago and was able to marry you! You are everything that I have ever dreamed of. You are a great husband, priesthood holder, businessman, and one day father. You have brought so many of my dreams to life, both the ones I have thought about and some I never even considered. I have felt so blessed to have you in my life. I know that the Lord is looking out for us and has been part of our marriage since day one. I am so glad that you were able to take me to the temple so we could be sealed for all eternity. One lifetime would not be enough. Thank you for everything! I LOVE YOU. Happy Anniversary!