5!

Jed and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary this June.  It seems like a big milestone...that's 1,825 days!  I thought I'd share 5 reasons why I'm thankful for Jed and our marriage...

1. I think one (of the many) reason God gave me Jed was to loosen me up a bit.  I'm naturally a little high strung, a little bit of a worrier/planner/stresser, etc.  I've got some preferences (that are, just that) and I take some things a little too seriously.  Enter Jed.  Jed is laid back and Jed can roll with the punches.  Jed trust the Lord and Jed knows how to surrender his preferences to follow God's lead.  I'm really thankful that I am growing in these areas because of him.

2. Jed loves me as I am and where I'm at.  He doesn't care what I make for dinner or what I'm wearing or how crazy the house is when he gets home after a long day.  He doesn't judge how I spend my time during the day when the laundry isn't put away or when I want to order pizza for dinner because I wanted to rest in the afternoon.  He has loved and cared for me through 3 pregnancies, 3 deliveries and 3 post partum time periods and not even batted an eye (and you all know that is emotionally and physically hard and gross stuff!).  Seriously.

3. He is our kids favorite and he has their hearts.  He works hard to love them and play with them even though he spends less time with them during the day and they ALL adore him.

4. I'm thankful for marriage in that it has revealed so many things that I didn't even know I struggled with or was bad at.  God has and will continue to use Jed and our marriage to refine me.  I just need to stay humble.

5. Jed is really fun.  I know this isn't one of the 5 love languages, but I think if it were, having fun and laughing would be one of his.  This goes back to #1 a little bit but I feel like especially after having 3 kids, my mind is exhausted from mentally multi tasking all day and I have a hard time winding down.  I'm constantly thinking about who needs to eat, who needs to sleep, what time we are doing this or that.  It's not bad to be organized but it is bad when it takes away your joy and you can't enjoy life with the person/people you love.  So Jed, one of my goals for the next 5 years of our marriage is to have more fun with you.  Laugh more.  Stay up late and talk more.  Smile more.  And be more thankful.

Instead of gifts, we decided to try and take a trip for our anniversary this year.  This went from an idea to reality in the matter of a couple hours thanks to about a million emails exchanged between me, Jed and my parents and Expedia.com.  Since my sister and Bud just moved to the Washington DC area and Jed is a huge history nerd buff we thought that would be a great place to go.  We drove to Minnesota, dropped the big kids with my parents and hopped a plane with Miss Tiegan tagging along.

Tiegan was the best and I mean BEST little traveler.  A lady across the aisle from us told us she was the cutest baby she had ever seen.  Ever.  I must agree.

Excited to see Auntie Em at the airport!

Claire and Will were soooooo excited to see us.  Well, maybe mostly Tiegan, but us a little bit too.

We did lots of sight seeing that Saturday!  We tried to take as much in as possible!

Washington Monument

I tried to do a panoramic picture of the World War II memorial.  I'm not a great iphone photographer.

The White House!

If you can't tell from the beads of sweat on our foreheads, it was hot.  Really hot.

We also did the Museum of American History.  That was our last stop of the day.  Between the heat, the walking and nursing a baby, I was feeling a bit dehydrated even though I tried to keep up with water.  It was impossible.  But I recovered once we got home.

The next day we went to the National Marine Corps Museum.

Tiegan wasn't impressed but we were!  Jed would have read every single caption on every single artifact in every single exhibit if we had all day.

It was fun to watch Em and Bud love on Tiegan.  

She really is the sweetest baby.

She even fell asleep DURING take off on the flight back to Minnesota.

A great little traveler!

I can't forget to mention that the trip would not have been possible without our beloved Ma and Papa.  The big kids had the best weekend ever and are still talking about all of the fun things they did and places they ate, etc.  We will gladly go on a trip annnnnytime if they want to keep our kids again!  I did miss them terribly but I knew they were in great hands.

Racing shoes

Jed is training for the half marathon, Dam to Dam, coming up at the end of May and has been logging lots of running time.  Some of his co-workers are also training and decided to run a 5K in Johnston at ChildServe a few weeks before their big race.  Our good friend Tim joined in too so it was another Johnson and Laehn family excursion.

Lainey and Penelope got to ride along for the 5K!

While the moms and the boys ate pancakes.  Sounds about right.

Jed pushed the girls for the first half and Tim took over for the second half.  Jed's competitive side came out in full force at the very end of the race as he kicked it into high gear to pass his co-workers.

Jed's co-worker Matt and Tim with the jogging stroller were close behind!

Pancakes for everyone!

Then it was time for the kids races!  The girls got to decorate their own race labels!

Here's their warm up before the big race.

At the starting line!

Lainey's competitive streak also came out as she totally left her best friend in the dust.  Sorry, P.  And I'm also sorry for my annoying voice and laugh.  It was just about the funniest thing ever.  Half of the kids had no idea what was going on.

So proud of their hard earned medals!

It was a really fun family morning and good to be supporting a great cause that helps the special needs population of the community so well!

Walking in Memphis

Jed and I haven't traveled anywhere, just the two of us, since our honeymoon almost four years ago.  It's not that we don't like traveling, it's just not something we do much of and when you have two little kids, that makes it a bit tougher too.  A few months ago Jed forwarded me an email from his boss with a nomination form filled out for an award at work.  He felt pretty honored to be nominated for as he would say, "just doing his job."

A few weeks later, he called me with awesome news that he was one of the winners!  Jed does not get overly excited about much, but I could hear in his voice that he was really thrilled.  The best perk of the award?  A trip to Memphis for both of us for the awards ceremony!

I blog about this not to brag that we went on a trip, but to brag about my husband.  That's different and okay, right? :)

I, for one, was not surprised at all that he won.  Out of 11,500 employees, 40 were honored with this award.  The nomination that his boss wrote him was full of praise and explanation of the hard work that he does every day.  I can't even tell you much about his company or specific job, but I do know that leaving Nationwide for Sedgwick was a great fit for him and he really enjoys working there.

So, once we got the dates and travel itinerary, we secured someone to watch the kids (thanks a million again Mom!), we packed and off we went.

We had some trouble with flights and spent waaaay too much time in airports on our way out but it was still fun just to be together!

The awards ceremony was really nice.  I learned a lot about the company listening to the CEO talk and do a question and answer session.  He had a lot of great things to say about the award winners.

We stayed at the Peabody in Memphis, which is a really historic hotel.  It was beautiful!

The Peabody is known for the Peabody Ducks.  They have a Duckmaster who trains the ducks.  They live in their Duck Palace on the roof and each day at 11 AM, the Duckmaster leads them from their palace, to the elevator, and down to the lobby.  The walk an actual red carpet from the elevator to the fountain in the middle of the lobby.  They swim there all day and then do the same thing at 5 PM to return to their Duck Palace.  People from all over come in to the lobby each day to listen to the Duckmaster and watch the "show."  It was quite a sight!

Maybe one of the biggest highlights for me, besides honoring my husband, was the food.  First, I didn't have to share.  Second, I didn't have to cut anything up into little pieces.  And it was GOOD!  Really good!

They had all kinds of things planned for us to do to enjoy some sights in Memphis.

We toured Sun Studio which is where Elvis was discovered and many other famous musicians, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. have recorded.

We ate dinner on Beale Street one night, too.

Then, we got to tour Graceland.  Whoa.

I can't say that I'm a huge Elvis fan in so many words, but it was still really neat.  I do appreciate his music and how he changed music history.  When I think of Elvis, I think of younger Elvis, "Blue Suede Shoes," and "Heartbreak Hotel," not so much sequin jumpsuit Elvis.  But, let me tell you.... Elvis wore a lot of sequin jumpsuits.  Actually, it was really cool.  They've preserved the house just like it was when he lived there and it was neat to see his airplane, fancy cars and all of the memioribilia too.

Thankfully, our flights home went smoothly.  I was more than ready to see my babies.  This greeted us when we got home! :) :) :)

Overall it was a great trip.  I could not be more proud of my husband and we had a great time celebrating for a few days.  Thankful that he's such a hard worker and a good example to our family!