A year ago, the weather was perfect. The skies were sunny and blue with just-budding trees, a picture-perfect spring day.. Today we find ourselves with 33 kids, here with the humidity stuck to our skin. An endless flood of knocks not the front door. Here, where we woke up to a grasshopper crawling up the wall behind our heads. With days ever-so frustrating, and ever-so full. I have come to know you in a much deeper way over the course of a year. And you.. me. 

Sometimes it seems we couldn’t be more opposite.. you, the lover-of-breakfast and practical thinker, the one who is 5 minutes early for everything and has a bit of a sugar addiction. And me. Coffee lover and please-don’t-give-me-anything-to-eat-before-ten, please. The one who is usually scrambling to find her shoes when we’re already 5 minutes late, and likes making low-sugar, gluten free desserts whenever she can.

You deal with my crazy. My funny-random crazy that dances in the kitchen and eats ice cream cake for dinner. And my terribly obnoxious kind of crazy, the kind where I should learn where the line lies and that jumping out from behind the dark hallway door isn’t funny. And then there’s just plain crazy.. where 4 innocent words at the dinner table are taken so personally, and the next hour of your life feels like mayhem. 

We rented our very first house together. The one on 1st street, back when your commute to work was 2.5 minutes long. We’ve unpacked and repacked countless times, it seems. Now our things are stored in my parents basement. We’ve planted a garden; watching it fail, succeed, and then die early. We’ve spent a lot of hours on the road. A lot. We know how to maneuver the airports and which bags to pack what luggage in; we learned our lesson about holiday embargo. 

A lot has changed over the course of a year. More memories than this page can hold. Looking at you, sitting across from the table, I think of all the changes that have taken place. 

I think we both worried the first year would break us.. that marriage and house-renting and moving to Haiti and then to Alaska would be something that would ruin us. We knew how crazy it was. And if we ever forgot, there were people to remind us. 

But there was one thing we got wrong. One thing I wish we could go back and tell ourselves as we worried over decisions and was this the right one?

God is so much bigger than either of us can fathom. 

Not only is He bigger than our hearts can know, but He will hold us and go before us and keep us. April 23, 2017 has come. And here we are, sitting at the kitchen table while the noise from the country of Haiti floods into our windows and the kids knock on the door and the humidity sticks to our skin and there are receipts for Alaskan Airline tickets in our email boxes.. we are here, and it is only because He is too. 

Despite the changes, despite the differences between us, despite us ourselves.. He is faithful. And good. He is the reason, the sustainer, the provider. 

One year later, and I still think you are cute with your hair sticking up in the back and your eyes that light with a mischievous secret. One year later, we have had many a hard moments and many, many highlights. One year later, it is still you I want to crawl into bed next to (and I don’t mind it if you’ll kill the spiders and set the rat traps).

All my love,

Anna

Also, let me apologize in advance for the way I will probably smell like pee by the end of today. If that’s not romantic, I don’t know what is.