10 Year Anniversary

Last week, June 19, was our 10 year anniversary.  We didn’t really do anything special on the day.  In fact I got home from a special program at the library with the kids and had 30 minutes to make dinner and eat before we had to be at Activity Days, so we had corn dogs (not so special).  So thankfully we had already made up for it by going on an earlier trip in March to Florida to celebrate this years anniversary.  My mom and Nate’s mom were so awesome to take turns taking care of our girls while we were gone.  We also got help from neighbors dropping off and picking up our kids from school.  Thank you all so much.  I love knowing I can count on you.

On Thursday, March 13 we flew to Fort Lauderdale and went straight to the beach.  We walked around and then checked into our hotel. 

After dinner we hit the shopping scene at the largest outlet mall in America, Sawgrass Mills.

On Friday was Nate’s birthday and we went to the everglades.  We wanted to take an airboat tour and maybe see some alligators.  We went to Everglades Holiday Park (The Gator Boys, a show on Animal Planet is filmed here) and we were not disappointed.

Our tour guide would call the alligators out.  “Come here Bubba, come here.”  I was laughing at how ridiculous it was until the gator crawled right into the water and swam out to us.

“Come here Little, come here.”

There were some pretty cool birds out here.

After the airboat tour we got to see a show with some of the alligators that they have rescued. 

In the state of Florida, if an alligator ends up in your swimming pool or a pond in your neighborhood, then it is considered a nuisance and they kill them.  So the Gator Boys go get them and bring them to their rescues.  They can not be returned to the wild because they will go back.


We stopped to see the new Fort Lauderdale Temple and were sad we missed the open house by two weeks.

That afternoon we checked into our new hotel in Boyton Beach and went walking and exploring Oceanfront Park Beach.  Monstrosities called houses lined the beach here.  We loved watching huge birds dive for fish and the tiny sand birds that always could avoid getting wet by the tide as they ate bugs off the sand.

We were very careful to avoid stepping on the man o’ war that were washing up. 

On Saturday we drove up the coast on Ocean Blvd and made our way over to Rodger Dean Stadium for some spring training baseball.  We watched the Marlins play the Nationals.
On Sunday we went back to Oceanfront Park Beach and watched the sun rise.  This moment reminded us so much of our honeymoon in Cancun of the day before we were leaving watching the sun rise.  Life is so different now then it was then.  I loved what it was then and I love what it is now.




















We went to church and then spent the rest of the day at the same beach. We totally lost track of time and ended up getting a pretty good burn. We drove up to South Palm Beach to Nate’s hotel that he would be staying at for the rest of the week while he was there working.
Early Monday morning he dropped me off at the airport so I could get on my flight home and he could get to work.
A lot has happened in 10 years. I am very grateful for my husband and the love he shows the very imperfect me.