Love is All You Need

On my dresser, sits a picture in a rugged, handmade frame. Well, at least they told us it was handmade. It's a photo from our honeymoon in the Bahamas. A photographer roamed the resort with a camera and snapped shots of different couples eating dinner, at the pool and walking through the grounds. Traditionally, I'm too cheap to buy these photographs. But I knew that I would regret it for life if I hadn't. I was totally right. We purchased five photos, but the one that's currently on my dresser - the two of us sitting at a restaurant, my hand on his - is my absolute favorite. Partly because we look so cute, but also because it represents a wonderful season in our life together!

We worked hard before our wedding and the day was just perfect. We had been looking forward to our honeymoon to relax. This all-inclusive resort was everything I could have asked in the perfect destination after our wedding. We felt so spoiled. So pampered. So lazy. It was fabulous. The resort's mantra is "Love is all you need." They even answered the phones with it before saying their name. As newlyweds, we were convinced that were true.

We dreamed about our life together, a life that we now shared. We had every reason to expect the best. Andy had been working tirelessly for the past three months gutting our house to make my move from the suburbs to the city more comfortable. We were both excited about the adventure that awaited us. Would we be able to have kids? What would they be like? Would we be able to buy more rental properties?

Life was much simpler. It was just us. No one else depended on us for their existence, no one expected much. We were newly married and people seemed to give us a little space to enjoy our time together. Our biggest decision of the weekend was which movie to rent or where to go for dinner. I could leave my scrapbooking materials on our kitchen table for days at a time and poured myself into numerous cookbooks, preparing new recipes everyday. Life was grand. Our honeymoon and first year of marriage was a wonderful season in our life, one at I will always remember with gratefulness.

Seasons changed as we got pregnant, found out we were having twins and then even after the boys were born. We took one step at a time. We failed at some things, excelled at others. We made mistakes and worked to do better. Parenting has been the most challenging thing I have ever done - but it has also been the most rewarding. 

And now, we are preparing to transition into another season of life for our family. We are looking to buy a new home!

We need more space, more bedrooms, more grass. But all of this comes at a cost. It's expensive. It's a lot of work. It's exhausting. It's emotionally draining. Our house will be on the market next week and so we're up to our elbows in unfinished house projects, servicemen, and mortgage letters. We're continuing our (ongoing) discussion about where we'll live, how much we can spend and what things are really important. We're taking walking in different neighborhoods and interviewing the neighbors to see what things they like about the community. We're looking up elementary school listings in Business First, wondering how many more bedrooms we might need and if we'd be able to expand to the house in the future. It's a little scary. Makes you feel like you've got to have all of the answers for the next twenty years of your life, just to buy a house!

And yet, through all of this craziness, a beautiful picture of a happy couple honeymooning in the Bahamas sits on my dresser. An optimistic couple, very much in love. Hand over hand, their eyes are innocent and eager. Excited about their future and willing to do whatever it took to give the very best to their family someday.

We are that couple.

I don't have the answers I wish I had, but I'm trying to convince myself that's alright. I didn't have all of the answers four years ago either and look how far God brought us! Perhaps ignorance really is bliss.

So until our house is sold and until we buy a new house and until we're finished renovating and until we're all moved in and until our stuff is organized... I'll just have to remind myself. Love is all we need... though money helps a little, too! ;)