{"id":632,"date":"2009-08-31T17:17:07","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T21:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.handsful.com\/?p=632"},"modified":"2009-08-31T17:17:07","modified_gmt":"2009-08-31T21:17:07","slug":"17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/archives\/632","title":{"rendered":"17"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"null\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2623\/3874939600_1c2e409d88.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"418\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This past Saturday, Randy and I celebrated 17 years of marriage.\u00c2\u00a0 That sounds like such a long time!\u00c2\u00a0 20 seems just around the corner.\u00c2\u00a0 We actually began dating in 1985, so we realized that we will have been together a total of 25 years next year.\u00c2\u00a0 Gracious!\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Randy surprised me with a slideshow complete with music\u00c2\u00a0that he created the night before our anniversary&#8230;come to find out, he stayed up ALL night making it.\u00c2\u00a0 What a sweetheart.\u00c2\u00a0 It was great, and I held back the tears during the whole thing.\u00c2\u00a0 The kids loved seeing all the pictures of me as a little girl leading up to us dating, marrying, and having our brood of kids.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the best anniversary present EVER.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"null\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2581\/3874151899_355910f020.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The girls decided that our anniversary deserved a cake, so they made this while we were out at a baby shower that day.\u00c2\u00a0 Pink frosting, baby blue cake (someone had fun with the food coloring&#8230;), the wolf represents Randy&#8217;s college (everything always comes back to NC State somehow), and they found a stray &#8220;1&#8221; candle and added 7 others.\u00c2\u00a0 How sweet is that??\u00c2\u00a0 We saved the cake until after we all got home from our wonderful steak dinner out.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"null\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2510\/3874151803_388d83cd17.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"415\" \/><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Why I love him&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my best friend.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>I know most everyone says that about their husbands, but he really is.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>I prefer an evening spent with my husband over any other option. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">He makes me laugh all the time\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6one of the first things I loved about him all those years ago is still true (more so!) today.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s generous with the resources that God has blessed him with, and enjoys doing for others \u00e2\u20ac\u201c what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to love about that?<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fantastic dad, with a great relationship with all the kids.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>He balances firm discipline with all-out, crazy fun.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">He endures ME!<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>My constant to-do list suggestions (some would call it nagging, I prefer not to), my simplistic cooking skills, my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153how can I handle all this today\u00e2\u20ac\u009d rants.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>He loves me completely &#8211; just as I am &#8211; and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say how much that means to me.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: &quot;Century Gothic&quot;;\">He loves Jesus.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>As much as his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can do it all\u00e2\u20ac\u009d self tries to push him, he strives to lay it all at God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feet and accept when things don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go his way.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>And, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quick to give God the glory when things do.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 9pt;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>To quote Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice &#8220;The man next to me is the one I want.\u00c2\u00a0 You asked me.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m answering.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, I love that man of mine.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 :)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This past Saturday, Randy and I celebrated 17 years of marriage.\u00c2\u00a0 That sounds like such a long time!\u00c2\u00a0 20 seems just around the corner.\u00c2\u00a0 We actually began dating in 1985, so we realized that we will have been together a total of 25 years next year.\u00c2\u00a0 Gracious!\u00c2\u00a0 Randy surprised me with a slideshow complete with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}