Thursdays: Tied with Love & Laughter

My wonderful IRL friend, Jen,  has just started blogging. I'm so happy! Someone else now completely understands why I blog and have for quite some time! Not only has she just started blogging (Our Family Forest) she just started a new weekly meme TODAY! Thursdays: Tied with Love & Laughter is your way of sharing all about the love of your life - your spouse. So while I've shared about my love story before, I wanted to jump in to this meme too and I have new photos to share. Let me just say....we were so young!!!!

Like Jen shares in her post today, my hubby & I met and married within the span of nine months. In fact, we had such a whirlwind romance that I have very few photos of us while we were dating. My best friend set us up while we were all still in college. The day I met him, I just knew he was "the one."

I had just broken up with a long term boyfriend (3-1/2 years). We had even been engaged for a brief period of time, but thankfully I came to my senses and left that relationship without looking back. God knew what he was doing for me. A few months after that relationship ended I met my hubby. As I mentioned we were both young and foolish college students.

We were actually married here - for about eight months. The beach in December. COLD!

We met in September. Dated through our junior year of college (actually my first year back to college but I was doing a two year program). We left college in May and came back in September married. Needless to say most of our friends has no clue and some nasty rumors ran around for quite a bit. (No, I was not pregnant. Our first son arrived three years later.)

Being married during college is hard. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Sometimes I look back at that really hard year and just know it was God working in our lives. My hubby was a brand new Christian and I was just coming back to the faith of my youth. That certainly helped. We also had made an open commitment to each other...."divorce was not an option." For us, that was what it would take. Otherwise I think it would have been too easy to not work on our issues and just walk away.

A rare look at my hubby with only a mustache. 

He used to shave his beard each spring and grow it back each winter. 

However, the last ten or so years he's had a goatee which I love!

This photo was taken at my college graduation in May 1994.

Hubby took an extra semester and graduated in December 1994.

But we did work through things and we managed to get through those rough patches of early marriage. By doing so our marriage has continued to grow stronger. We will be celebrating 18 years this coming July. I can't wait to see what the next 18 years (and more!!) bring!

Our wedding day on July 17, 1993.

A photo with my grandparents - both now gone.

Be sure to head over to Our Family Forest and join up on the fun!