Almost 3 and a half months ago my whole world changed. My heart is now bound to another's in Christ through marriage. The biggest blessing I could have ever dreamt of! The past few months have been such a beautiful adventure. Learning to live life as a wife has been such a blast, fulfilling, hilarious, and honestly quite humbling.
On our honeymoon, I thought, "this will kind of be similar to what our life will be like right? Always together, always tan, always laughing, always relaxed..." And that my friends, is why they call it the honeymoon phase. Don't get me wrong, we are very much still in the honeymoon phase! But the kick back in to real life was swift when we got home.
Within two days of returning, Josh was sick and so was our 15 year old pup Maple. Maple had been in my life since I was in 3rd grade and I was entirely convinced that she would live forever. We will be forever grateful that we were there when she passed and that she had not been in pain for long. We said good bye to Maple two days after we got home. Talk about bitter sweet. I was so happy to be home with my husband and live together and then....my dog dies? Not exactly my plan at all. Even though I was blissfully married, I cried the whole first week we were home. Mind you, I did laugh a lot too, but I was also mourning the life of a companion I'd had for more than half my life.
Weeks had passed and our other dog, Pancakes (yes, plural) who is almost 6, was still sad without our girl. We had been planning on adopting another dog in January, so this just seemed to bump up our process. We started looking online at local rescues and thinking about what kind of dog would be right for us. Then one fateful Saturday, Josh went to a Petsmart adoption day while I was at work. Obviously we all know if you go with even the inkling of adopting a dog, and there are a bunch of puppies kissing you, you will take one home, or you might as well be heartless. That day, we brought home a bouncing baby girl dog who we named Greyson, about 20 lbs and huge paws. She has made our lil family complete for now, brings so much joy, and has completely brought out the best in Pancakes .
On top of our growing family, I have also been blessed with one of every girls dreams...two of my best friends were engaged at the same time as me. Ava got married in June and my best friend Cheryl just married her man a week ago! This is how you dream of it in middle school. "We will get married around the same time, we will double date, we will have babies at the same time..." I mean come on, you all had that written down in your Lisa Frank friendship journal and/or seen Bridewars. Ava and I's festivities were within weeks of each others all before June, making life crazy but so fun. And now recently we have gotten to celebrate all things Cheryl! The Lord has truly blessed me with friendships and bonds that make life so much fun and fulfilling. As both of my friends live out of town and state, I know that time and space between me and two of my best friends will not hinder our friendship.
Through all of this madness, I have been learning to be a wife. It's learning to make someone your number one priority in every area of your life. I love to serve people, I always have. I love to buy presents, I love to make dinner for people, surprise people with coffee at the right moment...that part came naturally to me. I am great at doing laundry and cleaning up. I naturally fell right into my role as the traditional wife. But I am not just a traditional stay at home house wife, as much as I think I would like to be. Part of being a team is learning what makes the other one feel loved. I have had to really work on making my schedule line up with Josh's so that we can have the quality time that shows him he is my number one. For me, I love so many wonderful people. I am blessed with a huge family, an amazing bunch of friends - who just insist on living everywhere. So, I spend a lot of my time trying to be there for all of them. I am in no way praising my efforts as a friend, daughter, sister, stylist or whatever, but trying to show you where my love had been focused. Those relationships do not have to suffer to be a good wife. I just have to put him first. Learning to be a wife first and everything else second. No one would disagree that is what you should be!
With all of the holidays around the corner, we have been enjoying decorating our home together, making traditions, and drinking a lot of coffee and hot chocolate. This year has brought the most joy into my life. I became an Auntie for the first time, one of my sisters started med school, another sis started college, and the youngest turned 5!! My heart is bursting at the seams with love.
There, my friends, is a glimpse into my life as a wife and what we have been up to!
I have a couple blog posts coming up with fun holiday decor too, so stay tuned.
xoxo
Lexi
