4 years

 Tomorrow is our 4th wedding anniversary- I really can't believe it's been that long. At the same time, it feels like we've been married forever. I'm so happy I made the decision when I was so young to marry this man. I remember when we were dating and engaged we talked about the kind of adventures we wanted to have in life, how we wanted to travel and see the world, and how fun it would be to live abroad. Little did we know then where our life would take us- I think the 2006 version of ourselves would be pleased to know the wild ride we've been on so far.

When I got married I had so many people tell me "marriage is hard work" and "the first year is the hardest". Then we had our first year of marriage, I thought we had it made. Those first few years of marriage, living the student life in Provo, childless, were a blast. Really we had it easy- we were blessed with good jobs and were always able to make ends meet, school went well, we had the best friends in our apartment complex that we had a blast with, we traveled a lot, enjoyed leisurely Saturday mornings making a big breakfast and working out together, enjoyed the freedom that our carefree life offered us. We had lots of time to spend together and we had awesome adventures. Our sweet little Chase joined us, and although stressful and hard work, our happiness just felt complete.

Then, just before our 3rd anniversary, we moved away from all our family and friends and even the good old USA to come to Dominica for medical school. With the accelerated program here, Ben became completely immersed in school work and those hours of time together quickly diminished to about 20 minutes a day at dinnertime. We had new stresses- like water being shut off frequently, the grocery store constantly being out of at least 2 ingredients needed for dinner that night, living in sweltering heat with no AC, having to chase lizards out of our home and worrying about poisonous centipedes and that the cows lining the dirt road I walked 12 times a day might get angry and charge. The stress of passing each semester weighed heavily on us. We missed our family and friends a whole lot.

This was the point where I felt more that marriage was "work". Ben loves homemade meals, and I'd always strived to make them, but now I had much more limited ingredients. And cooking here is way more work because I have to make almost everything from scratch- bread, tortillas, spaghetti sauce, and pretty much everything else imaginable. I had to learn to light our oven with a match (no small task for me) and then cooking anything would heat up our house even more than before. There have been many times that all these added stresses of 3rd world country life has made us a little grumpy and maybe less than pleasant with each other. Those days when we'd come up drenched from head to toe from being caught in a out-of-nowhere downpour only to find that there wasn't running water at home, due to the storm, ironically.

And although it's been hard, I think it's made our love and appreciation for each other stronger. Ben appreciates all the sacrifices I've made to support him here and reminds me of that often. I have grown to love and respect him more from seeing his hard work and dedication to his school work, but I am also filled with gratitude that he does take time for his family. Truly, every time I see Ben play with and care for our Chase my heart just swells and I'm so grateful I married a man who is such an amazing father. Everyone told us that moving away was good for a marriage, that you learn to depend more on each other. It's so true, our life here has solidified and bound our marriage in a way that nothing had before. It also taught us that it really doesn't matter where we live, as long as we are together, we have all we need.