TEN Years!!!

Today is our 10th Anniversary!  

It's been ten years of highs, lows, and a lot of just everyday life:

2005
-We got married!
-We went and worked at a fishing lodge in a neighbouring province for the first 4 months of our married life.  I had 2 seizures there and one shortly thereafter.
-After the lodge we came back and Hubby resumed working at a boat factory while I stayed at home.
-We lived in a borrowed camper trailer on our yard while we helped renovate a tiny, uninhabited house that we rented from Hubby's parents.  
-Just in time for winter, we moved into said tiny house.
-We got our first [outdoor] cat, followed over the next 7 years by a succession of many more outdoor cats!

2005

 2006
-We got our "baby", our [indoor] cat, Smacky.  He was ours for 7 years and still remains in our hearts.
-My brother and his wife came home from China with their daughter whom they adopted at the age of 22 months; I now had 3 wonderful nieces.
-Hubby got laid off from his job at the boat factory just before Christmas.  He immediately went and got hired driving semi-truck long distance.

2006

2007
-After 4 years of being on antidepressants and living with depression, anxiety, and physical side effects for those 4 years, we caught on that the drugs were doing the damage, and I spent the following 4 months withdrawing from them, and the next number of months and years recovering.
-In the middle of the brutal drug withdrawal, Hubby & I went on a really great trip to Oshkosh, WI for the biggest annual airshow in the world.
-My biological clock kicked in and I started wanting to start a family.
-We bought the house we were renting.

2007

2008
-Hubby left his job driving truck and went to work as a flight instructor.  The new job didn't pay as well as planned and caused us a lot of financial struggles.
-We got another [indoor] cat, Chilla, whom we had for 2 years.
-We went on an amazing trip with my brother, sister-in-law, and their almost-4-year-old daughter whom we got to babysit for a chunk of the trip.
-After almost 3 years seizure-free, I had two this year.

2008

2009
-Hubby had to quit flight instructing and went and got a job driving gravel truck, because we were weeks away from going bankrupt.  Later in the year he switched back to driving semi-truck, but this time around he was home every night.
-I went through a lot of negative health experiences, some of which were short-lived and some of which I am still dealing with.  I had an exploratory laparoscopy as well and got my appendix out at the same time.
-We gradually quit attending our church that we'd been part of for about the last 5 years, due to both my poor health that wasn't allowing me to get up in the mornings and our changing spiritual beliefs.

2009

2010
-I continued to experience more poor health.
-We took a major step and quit trying to conceive, causing a lot of grieving, and started switching me from one seizure med to another, and decided to adopt.

2010

2011
-I completed the change from one seizure med to the other.
-Started the process of subdividing our land, which was a huge, long hassle.
-We had to wait for the medication change to be over, and our land to be subdivided and sold, before we moved any further forward with adoption.  I spent a lot of time researching adoption and reading adoption blogs.

2011

2012
-My oldest sister (but only 35) got diagnosed with breast cancer.  It was a very rough year for her, her daughters, and our family.  Thankfully she is fine now!
-I turned 30. 
-In preparation for moving and hopefully adopting a baby, we reluctantly gave away our cat, my baby, Smacky.  We also gave away our precious last outdoor kitty, Buddy.
-We sold our land and our house.
-We applied for adoption and got to work on the approval process.

2012

2013
-We moved out of the country and into a condo in town, and renovated it.
-Hubby quit driving semi-truck and started dispatching at the same place, and then was shortly let go from the job due to being unwilling to break the law.
-We got approved to adopt!
-I became an independent rep for Regal Gifts, but still stay at home.
-Hubby resumed flight training and passed his flight tests, put in resumes for flying jobs, and started driving gravel truck.

2013

2014
-We tried to sell our condo but after a few months on the market with no bites, took it off again.
-We had our annual update and found out we had been shown to zero expectant parents in the last year.
-After almost 6 years of being seizure-free, I had another one.
-Hubby turned 30.
-We found out near the end of the year, that in the last six months, we had been shown 3 times!

2014

2015
-We put our condo up for sale again.
-I had another seizure.  I plan on going up on my meds to better control my epilepsy; I want to be the best mom possible if God so chooses for me to be a mom.
-We are busy working on our annual update for adoption and excitedly planning our 10th anniversary road trip!

2015

Happy Anniversary, Lee!