Marriage has been the craziest roller coaster. Such a fun ride, full of learning and growth. (That's the happy way to say it is HARD sometimes, and learning to be a wife is no piece of cake.) Not even a full two years in and I already feel like so much of a better woman because of Tyler. He challenges me, pushes me, all while encouraging me to be 100% who I was made to be. (Not who I've convinced myself I have to be.) Marriage has taught me that I have to be willing to compromise my beliefs of what is "normal" in order to have a happy home. Whether that is where the broom belongs, how many throw pillows we should or should not own, if rooms should all have curtains, how to paint a kitchen, or even if hiking 15 miles a day and sleeping in a tent is reasonable. Marriage has forced me to take a good hard look at how I do life. A lot of the ways I have "done life" have worked just fine, but I've found freedom in learning new habits and breaking old ones! Tyler is great at reminding me that I get to choose how I do life. The first major compromise I made in marriage was this one..
That is a black lab puppy who will eventually grow to be almost 100lbs. Tyler and I talked about getting a dog for a long time. I insisted that I wanted a poodle, while he insisted that he wanted a "real dog." We talked about this while dating, while engaged, and for the first 3 months of being married. Then boom, for my 22nd birthday we picked out this little cutie. 15lbs of love, abandoned on the side of road with his brothers, and scared of everything. After adopting him we went to the pet store where he continuosly peed all over me, so he got to ride in the cart for the rest of the trip. We then took him home, where he hid from us after bath time. On his first walk, he refused to leave the front porch. We adopted a 10 week old baby who was scared of everything, and he was everything I had argued to my husband that I did not want.
But now we're the best of friends. Scouts little(big) face is a constant reminder that sometimes I'm wrong about what I think I don't like, and that it's okay! So marriage has taught me to be open minded, and that I love big black dogs. Who woulda thought? I've also learned that I like hiking (if it's not too hot), that I don't have to shut down when I'm upset, that I can find real healing, and that I'm not forever broken. God has been so so so good to me these past two years. Growth has been hard, and sometimes I've felt like a failure at "wife-ing", but I grow and learn and move forward. Maybe I don't see a difference in myself day by day, but I look back on Haley two years ago and I feel like a completely different person. A stronger person. A person who is a little more open minded. A little. A lot has happened in the past two years and I've been pretty horrible at blogging, so I'll do a brief overview of some highlights.
For my 22nd birthday in March of 2015, we went skydiving! We've tried to have experiences over presents. So much more fun to do fun things together for birthdays and anniversaries. We still do some presents, but if we do something big and fun like this, no presents. We did get Scout for this birthday.. but he was kind of a present to everyone.
Tyler and I spent our first vacation away together (other than our honeymoon) in Seattle visiting my aunt and uncle, and doing some touristy sight seeing stuff. Such a great trip!
We had our first Christmas as married peeps, and had my family in town on Christmas Eve. We also bought a house last October so we spent Christmas at our new place! Spent Christmas day with Tyler's family. It was such a fun way to do our first Christmas!
For my birthday we toned it down a little from the year before. We went skydiving and I got a puppy for my 22nd. For my 23rd my boss gave me the day off (weird work policy thing that we all get birthdays off) and we hiked down to the "walls of Jericho" in the rain. Tyler randomly got the day off of work too as a forced holiday so we made a day of it!
