To celebrate our 16th anniversary, Mr. Nielson and I took a trip down memory lane.
Our first stop was the Provo Temple, where my Papa Jones
married us, surrounded by family and friends.
We enjoyed precious moments of reflection and nostalgia together
peeking in the room where we made promises to each other and God.
After the temple, we drove to The Homestead in Midway, Utah
where we had our wedding luncheon, and this day, 16 years later,
we stayed the night.
(In 2000, we had our luncheon, then split to
Salt Lake City, where we caught a plane headed for the Caribbean).
The Homestead was cozy and welcoming, and the best part about
(besides the delicious fudge in our room),
was the snow that was falling when we arrived.
Mr. Nielson and I stayed in one of the cozy homes on the
property and had dinner in the main house.
But the best part of this anniversary trip was discussing
16 years' worth of beautiful memories.
We came up with a list of life-changing events that happened each year:
2000- Buy a house/Marriage/Teach skiing at Sundance/Pregnant with Claire.
2001- Claire, born/New job for Christian/We become parents.
2002- Pregnant with Jane/New job for Christian.
2003- Jane born/Buy a new house/Graduation for Christian.
2004- Move to New Jersey/Pregnant with Ollie.
New house. New job/Began writing my Blog.
2005- Oliver born/NieNie Dialogues is born.
2007- New job for Christian//New house/
2016- We celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary/Christian starts a new
job adventure and begins a cattle enterprise at the ranch.
Here's to many, many more years of extraordinary life events!
We ended our anniversary date together on Saturday evening
at Costco- which was pretty appropriate for us.
We came home with pizza for our children,
and found Lottie in the kitchen examining our wedding
photo book with great detail.
I sat down on the kitchen floor with her, looking at the photos and
told her how much I loved her, how much I loved our family,
but especially how much
I love her father, and God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ
for making our marriages possible.
Then I told her that no matter what, our marriage could never be broken-
not even by death.
And she listened intently with her big brown eyes.
I am not sure she completely understood,
but we were connecting, and I
knew she believed what I was saying.
