Happy 8th anniversary to us!

Today's our 8th anniversary, and Mr. M is gone for it, again. A couple years ago, we noticed a trend emerging: he's usually doing some sort of training and is gone, whether it's for a couple nights, a couple weeks, or even longer.

The rundown:

1st anniversary- Mr. M was on a weekend (read: overnight) training exercise with the army. He hadn't gone to basic yet, and this was supposed to show them what basic would be like. After 3 days of lots of exercising and marching, he literally had to have help getting dressed- he was that sore!

2nd anniversary- We were at language school, and they scheduled a training exercise over our anniversary, so he was gone for a couple days again.

3rd anniversary- Mr. M was in one state, attending training to learn his military job, and I was still at language school, finishing up my Japanese course (I was in the class that started a couple months after his).

4th anniversary- Mr. M was out of the country for two and a half weeks. He did get a good present, though- an email showing a positive pregnancy test! I finally managed to stay pregnant, too.

5th anniversary- We were at language school again, and he was at a week-long immersion course over our anniversary.

6th anniversary- We were finally in the same place at the same time, but we didn't have the money or time to do anything- Mr. M had to spend lots of time studying.

7th anniversary- Mr. M was done with language school, but he was deployed halfway around the world.

8th anniversary- Mr. M's out of the country again for a two week training mission. The timing totally went by me till about 3 weeks before he left- then I realized he'd be gone, again. And I was the one who told him he should go...

Next year, on our 9th anniversary, who knows where he will be. I don't totally mind if he's gone again, as long as he's here the following year for our 10th. I want to do something big for that one. Maybe a trip or cruise or something.

It's a good thing we don't get hung up on holidays and 'special' events- being in the military sure makes it hard to be punctual with celebrations.

99.9% of our pictures are boxed up, in storage. Rather than dig through boxes, trying to find wedding photos, I made do with what I could find (random photos that weren't in storage).
Coming out of the temple:

Two of our wedding photos. Not sure why I had these particular ones, and not some of the others, but what can you do. I loved my dress! It's the first one I tried on, and after trying on several others, I kept going back to it. It was very simple, with flowers embroidered on the skirt, extending up to the bodice. Hard to see that in the photos, though.

Also, Happy Birthday to my brother and sister- thanks for sharing the day!