A tribute to my husband and our marriage

Kirk lost his arm just about 7 yrs ago (actually in just 3 more days), so now there are lots of things I have to do for him and even though I have to do them now (because there is no way he can do them), I still do them for him with love. I have to tie his shoes, cut his meat (usually in restaurants we have special knives here at home), hold things for him while he is working on them and the list goes on. It's doing it out of love and not because I am required too. We'll be married 20 yrs in Feb and we've been through more than most folks in a marriage, and we are still going strong because we work out of love for each other at it each and every day. You have to learn to adjust to the new things a marriage brings you and be thankful for the beautiful things that brought you together in the first ... you usually find even more beautiful things that bond you together as you grow together in your marriage.

17 Years Later....

Many of you don't know this but Kirk and I met 17 years ago on Dec 11th (started talking on the phone around the 1st of Dec), 1991. We were engaged to be married by Jan 1st (he took me to the lake in Kirkland, to a gazebo there...I was facing the lake and it was a moonlit night....he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife). We were married Feb 1st, 1992. Today we are celebrating 17 years of marriage. Looking back on our marriage, makes me think that society doesn't celebrate the marriages of those around them...be it 1 day, 1 month, 1 year or 100 years. The only time we take the time to celebrate a marriage is usually the 10th, 25th, 50th and 75th anniversary with our friend and family. Other than that most people seem to think wedding anniversaries are something to be privately celebrated between the husband and wife. I feel that if we as a society celebrated friends and families marriages each day, week, month and year with them by words of love and encouragement...there probably be more couples who had the support that is needed to make a marriage work and less divorce.

Yes, a marriage can make it but I feel that a support group of loving friends and family (even they themselves have suffered a loss of a marriage) is one of the best resources that God has given to us. Marriage isn't prefect by any means and it is something that needs to be worked on every minute of every day. Kirk and I have had our fair share of arguments. Not every day is a honeymoon....heck some months are even far from that. But we work at it because it is important to us and we love each other. I know I hear people drift apart and fall out of love with one another, but there are ways to bring them back together and help them fall in love with each other all over again...and sometimes that means those loving friends and family members have to support and encourage them.

I am also a firm believer that children should participate in some part of their parents Anniversary day, it helps to show them that marriage is sacred, special and something worth working on every minute of every day even when the going gets hard. Granted you should be showing them that all the time, but they also should be able to celebrate this special day when their dad married their mom and they became one. Trust me, I can tell you that I have been through hard in my marriage and when I said for better and worse, richer and poorer and in sickness and health...I meant it! I almost became a widow in 2004, when Kirk was pinned between semi truck and a trailer, this accident cost him his left arm and left him with a damaged back. The next year and a half was a very hard time in our marriage, there were days when we wanted to give up, throw in the towel but we meant those vows we said all those years ago. Marriage isn't something to take lightly or something to put on when it suits one, it is something to work on, to strife to make that best thing that ever happened to them and ever will. Of course, there are some exceptions to every rule, abuse of any type being one of them. Don't ever take someone hurting you. You have a right and deserve better.

In a lot of countries where marriages are arranged, marriages are viewed as an investment not only to the couple getting married but also to their family and friends. Did you know that over 60 % of marriages in the world are arranged marriages. Now granted not everyone of those marriages (probably a good precentage) are less than desirable marriages but even if they are less than desirable they are very unlikely to divorce, they seek the counsil of their family and friends to do everything possible to make it work. My point here is that we who are able to choose our spouse don't tend to take the view that marriage is an investment and very most likely neither do our family and friends. Of course this is just my 2 cents on this subject, it just is hard to know that the divorce rate is high. Over 1 million children will be effected by divorce this year and over 60% of them will be children under 6 years of age. These were recent satistics that I heard on a news report. Shocking isn't it? Please work on your marriage, do everything possible to save it and quit acting like it is some old purse you can throw and buy another to replace it when it doesn't suit you or isn't fashionable any more.

Kirk's New Car

This is Kirk's new Jaguar. I teasingly tell him, he should get a personalized license plate that says Midlife Crisis (as you may or may not know he just turned 40 in Feb).

What there is participation in this???

We stopped in to see one of those shows at the Worlds of Fun Amusement Park. It was about 60's and some 70's music. After the first song, they were looking for people to dance with so one of the little gals asked Edward if he wanted to dance with her, he freaked out and started to cry. So she didn't force it. The show went on. As the show progressed they did some TV show tunes from that era. They were doing the dating show. They got down and went and found a woman in the audience, whom they called Lucy. Then all of a sudden a different little gal was standing in front of Kirk, say and here's our Ricky. They took Kirk on stage and sang the dating game theme song, then the Love Boat Theme song putting lei's on Kirk and the gal from the audience. Then they moved Kirk and the gal back, opening these doors on their background. On the front of these doors were Sonny and Cher with holes where the faces are suppose to be. Suddenly Kirk's face appeared in the Sonny's hole. They had Kirk and the gal from the Audience singing "I Got You Babe!". It was hilarious. I wish I would have brought my camcorder. I had left my camera in a locker at the Amusement park so it wouldn't get stolen. So I missed getting something that was probably once in a lifetime on tape or film. That will teach me.