How the Time Flies!

How is it possible that 6 years can feel like 6 months? And yet, that is how Dave and I feel when it comes to our marriage -- which is a good thing! The time has simply flown these past 6 years and as we celebrated our anniversary yesterday, we realized how truly lucky we are to have experienced all that we have in just 6 years.

May 18th, 2002: We were married on a beautiful but somewhat blustery day at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Flagstaff, AZ. We were so fortunate to have so many beloved family and friends join us on our special day. It was a magical day! We then honeymooned at the Red Setter Inn in Greer, AZ.

We celebrated our 1st Anniversary by hiking the Grand Canyon for 5 days. We started on the Bright Angel Trail and went all the way to Phantom Ranch in the bottom of the canyon. It was such an unforgettable experience and we will forever be in awe of how small you feel compared to God's majestic beauty that envelopes you.

Our trip down the Grand Canyon was an appropriate way to say Farewell to the Grand Canyon State. After living in Flagstaff for our first year of marriage, we migrated to the north -- more specifically to Boise, Idaho.

We celebrated our 2nd Anniversary by buying a house!!! Life in Boise was chugging along at full speed. Dave was seeing huge success with his high school choirs and I was promoted to a semi supervisory role at my job. We traveled to Oregon and Seattle and saw a lot of the southern to mid portions of Idaho. We became quite active in the local community choirs and Dave was even a paid soloist with several ensembles.

While in Boise, our family expanded! In addition to Dave's snake (yes, he's still around), we adopted the following:

Buster & Socks Rusty Hilde

And they all made the move with us when, around the time of our 4th Anniversary, we moved across the country to Williamsburg, Virginia. Dave and I were lucky enough to make a road trip from Idaho to Virginia (without the animals) and stopped in Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, and Southern VA to see friends, family, and amazing sites!

Only a month after moving to VA, we reunited with a lot of our Idaho friends in Europe of all places. Dave's high school choir was selected to participate in Mozart's 150th celebration. We visited Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague and had the time of our lives! I think we both left our hearts in Austria.

And now, we are chugging along in Virginia. We are once again very involved in the community choirs in our area. And we both continue to do well at our jobs. The past 6 years have brought a lot of change: friends, homes, states, jobs, accents (just kidding). But the one thing that has not changed is our love for each other and our excitement to spend another 60 years with each other!