15 years ago today.

I was lucky enough to marry an amazing woman.
A woman that taught me about life, love and all things about being a good human.

15 years ago today.

It makes me sound old, when I say it out loud. I've been married for 15 years. and boy did I get lucky, she is more beautiful, sexy and intelligent today then she was when I met her.

15 years ago today.

I stood in her family living room, repeating vows that meant something, recited by a judge, to his wife, maybe 15 years prior to that.

I'm humbled.

It has been a long, crazy, 15 years.

We were dirt poor when we started out together and we hit it big only to fall into the dirt once during the perfect storm (last recession) and now have built ourselves back to feeling good again about our future.

When we met, I wanted 3 things from our new life. A Cow, Children and a Mini-Van.

The Cow represented a broken promise my father once had with me. When I was 8 he brought books home that showed farm houses (we lived in an apartment) , land, happy families and cows. lots of cows. He dreamt of the day we could move into our own farm house, with a few acres and raise a cow for milk or maybe for meat.

The next year, my father left us, my mother with 4 children (me the oldest), and a book (which she burned) about living life on a farm with a cow.

Children perpetuate the dream of prosperity and hope in our future as a race.

The hope we humans have to raise a family and give/provide a sense of awe for them and not make the same mistakes our parents made with us.

The mini-van came and went, twice. The cows have come and gone. The children have come and as you know will never go, and somehow through all this our marriage stayed.

Our future is what I'm really celebrating today. Not the last 15 years.

Now today I'm happy, humbled and proud to celebrate our future.

My job description has changed as Teague has entered High School. I look forward to 4 years of being there for her and 4 more years of being there for Quinn. That's 8 more years of doing my new job.

Today I celebrate 15 years and with tears in my eyes, I look forward to celebrate 8 more years as we raise our children and prepare them for the world.

Check back in 8 years and I'll be celebrating another anniversary and looking forward to the next 10 years of our life, hopefully playing with grandchildren.

I look at the statistics and it's scary. Over 50% of the marriages end in divorce. Scary isn't it.

But marriage isn't easy so it's easy to see why. Life isn't easy and Life isn't fair. and I don't have wisdom to share except that "you can do it!"

I get compared sometimes to men that make more money, men that have meticulous lawns and yards, and men that are cowboys.

I don't care, I like to strive to be better than the man I am. I want to be a better husband, lover, friend and partner to my wife. I strive to be a better father, teacher, mentor to my children.

15 years ago today.

I stood in her families living room and with tears streaming down my face, looking into the eyes of my future, I smiled.

I share with you what I thought that day.

I am marrying a woman that is a triathlete, with a degree from a couple of universities that makes mens heads turn when she walks into a room.

I will spend everyday making myself worthy of this gift.

I will raise a family that will have the opportunity to go to college.

I will learn from her head and her heart everyday.

and I will be happy.

15 years to the day, and you know what?

I am happy!

We are happy!

We surround ourselves with people that have been married longer than us, some of them 20+ years. We openly admire and are proud of them. We know what it takes.

Today we are proud of ourselves.

15 years ago today, our journey begun together and it's great to know we still have a long way's to go.