Eleven years of us

Last month, Nicholas and I celebrated eleven years of marriage!

On our actual anniversary, we brought the boys to a local coffee shop/restaurant with a lot of outdoor seating. They happened to be hosting a trail bike race, so we enjoyed watching a bit of that, the boys played yard games, and we sipped on our coffee outside at a picnic table. Later that day, we all snuggled together and watched a movie in the afternoon.

On Sunday, we went to church, and then in the afternoon, my father-in-law came over to watch the boys while we went on a dinner date together to a new-to-us restaurant. I'd been craving a Neopolitan style pizza, and so we settled on a place that offered that. We ordered crostini and two margherita pizzas and it was delicious! Very reminiscent of one of our favorite date night places in Austin, back in our earlier days of marriage. It is so nice to sit down and enjoy a meal and uninterrupted conversation together.

Our church is currently doing a sermon series on dating and marriage, and it's been really good (convicting and encouraging)! Last Sunday's sermon, in particular, had a few things that especially stood out to me:

• "Until your own sin is bitter to you, marriage will never be sweet."
• "When you understand the mercy of God, you can pass on that mercy to others, especially your spouse."

There is a sacrificial love that I am not always good at – but it is required of both members in a marriage. I am often less aware or bothered by my own sin. But everything looks different when I have an understanding that I am sinful and I married a sinful person, and we can live within a covenant of grace because of Christ. Grace and mercy can thrive in a marriage when we can understand our own hearts' need for it – and the true source of it in Jesus' work on the Cross. The gospel really does change everything.

Every year around our anniversary, I write a little love letter to Nicholas.

Looking back over the past year of marriage, it was an eventful one for our family. We bought a house, sold our other one, and moved. We experienced our third miscarriage. And we got pregnant again, with another baby (it's hard to believe I'm 26 weeks already). We have had backyard campouts and birthday celebrations, completed projects around the house (Nicholas), gone on family bike rides and beach days, and lived a lot of life in the last year.

As I do every year around this time, I like to write a list of some of my favorite things about our life together right now:

• We've enjoyed lots of meals out on the deck
• Although we aren't currently drinking as much coffee as we used to, I love sharing a cup of coffee with you, or making us yolky drinks with warmed raw milk, an egg yolk, honey, collagen, and a tiny bit of cocoa powder (a protein-forward version of a barely-sweet hot cocoa).
• We are enjoying having a sourdough starter that is healthy again, and the bread and bakes that are made possible by that
• Some of our favorite meals lately: grilled chicken wings (with basted BBQ sauce at the end), frittata, avogolemano soup, and of course, grilled hamburgers with sourdough hamburger buns.
• Simple Living Alaska is still our favorite YouTube channel to watch together (we always set aside time to watch new videos together)
• Raising our little boys together – with the frustrations and joys of parenthood – and talking about how it's the best thing we've ever done.

Eleven years into marriage, there is a comfort that comes with knowing Nicholas really well. And there is an unexpected sweetness sometimes – when Nicholas hugged me in the kitchen the other day, tears came to my eyes at the sweetness of the moment. What a gift to have a friend and companion, someone to partner with and come alongside in life with, to raise children with, to confide in, to laugh with, and to love.

Thank you, God, for another year of marriage, and for the gift of a life alongside Nicholas!

I love you, sweetheart. I'm so glad we met our freshman year at Purdue, all those years ago.

Forever yours, Andrea

Here are some of my favorite pictures of us from the last year of our marriage, a couple of which feature our family of four, since our little companion guys are almost always accompanying us:

P.S.— if you're curious, here are my previous anniversary posts and our love story (the beginning of it, anyway; our story is ongoing, of course!) in two parts:

• Our first year
• Two years of us
• Three years of us
• Four years of us
• Five years of us
• Six years of us
• Seven years of us
• Eight years of us
• Nine years of us
• Ten years of us
• Our love story, part I
• Our love story, part II