10 Year Anniversary!!

October 21st 2010 is our 10 year anniversary. It is amazing how fast time goes and how life changes. Here is a recap of our time together starting with our engagement.

We meet at Aquinas College in the fall of 1997, our sophomore year, during a Spanish class that we were both failing miserably, which we ended up both dropping. We discovered we were in more classes together and started hanging out as friends. That friendship turned into dating a few months later. With Trey a baseball player and Jodi a cheerleader for Aquinas it only seemed fit for Trey to propose on November 20th 1999 in the basement of the Aquinas College field house. Trey had Jodi's friend Emma distract her after the basketball game while he set his plan in motion. The head trainer came up to Jodi to tell her that Trey had tripped down the stairs and thinks he may have broken his ankle and that she needed to go see. In walked Jodi to Trey sitting with his foot in a bucket of ice water. Trey had Jodi sit down next to him when he lifted his foot out to show her the ring was on his toe and he proposed. The whole thing was caught on video which Trey had set up. The entire basketball team was in the locker room next door listening in.

Here we are at Charlie's Crab celebrating.

We were married at Remembrance Reformed Church on a gorgeous fall day with a wonderful reception at Noto's. The weather was absolutely beautiful. We had already purchased a home for us to move into once we got back from our honeymoon at 2843 Coit NE. Trey was working at the Center for Physical Rehabilitation as an Athletic Trainer/PT Aide and Jodi was a Human Resource Assistant at Triangle Associates.

The next day we left for our honeymoon at the Moon Palace Resort in Cancun.

We spent our first year of marriage getting use to living together and Trey continuing taking classes in order for him to apply for Physical Therapy school.

For our first anniversary we went up to Traverse City for a long weekend. The weather was gorgeous. We took the dinner train to enjoy the beautiful colors.

In July of 2002 Trey was accepted in PT school at Central Michigan University. In August we left our home and jobs in GR and moved to an apartment in Mount Pleasant.

For our anniversary in 2002 we had a very nice dinner at a local restaurant and then went to the Soaring Eagle casino for an after dinner drink. Trey was actually working at the casino in the spa at this time as a pool boy you could say. I was working at R.A.R. Electric in Ithaca as an administration assistant. (I can not find any pictures of us from this anniversary or even from around this time. This was before we owned a digital camera)

For our anniversary in 2003 we went back to Traverse City and spent another weekend. We stayed at the Sugar Beach Inn. Right after we got back from our trip I left to move back to my parents house in order to go back to work at Triangle as an Executive Assistant to the president. Trey and I were living in a new apartment in Mount Pleasant with our friend Mike Smith. We would spend the next year driving back and forth on weekends to see each other.

In the Summer of 2004 Trey moved back to GR and we moved back into our house on Coit. He was in his last year of school and was doing internships in GR. I was also taking classes to get my master's degree in administration. Our anniversary fell on a night I had class so after I got out we went to Cambridge House for a drink.

Trey graduated PT school in the Spring of 2005 and on Labor Day weekend of that year we headed to Arizona for Trey to start a position as a traveling PT. For our 5 year anniversary we headed to the Grand Canyon. The night before our anniversary we had a very nice dinner at a local restaurant and then headed to bed to get some much needed rest before our long hike in the morning. We started our hike going down the 6 mile South Kaibab trail which lead to the bottom of the canyon, followed the 1.7 mile trail along the colorado river over to the Bright Angel trail which lead us the 7.7 miles back up to the top of the canyon. We started at our 9am and reached the top at 5pm just in time to watch the sunset.

2006 found us back in GR where Jodi once again was working back at Triangle Associates but this time as a Human Resource Manager. We bought a new house at 3035 Hoag Ave NE. Trey was working at St. Mary's Home Health and teaching at GRCC. This anniversary we decided to head to Mackinaw Island and run our first 10k. This is 5.7 miles or as we said a 6 mile run for our 6 year anniversary. It was a chilly day but the run through the island was beautiful and we finished in just under an hour which was great since we did not train much for this. After the run we relaxed and headed into town for dinner and drinks.

2007 found us in a whole new boat as we were expecting our first child due December 16th. We headed up to the Shack bed and breakfast in Jugsville, MI (between Fremont and White Cloud). This was a perfect vacation for us since I was 8 month pregnant and needed to just relax. We did a whole lot of nothing for the weekend.

Our friends Mike and Eileen Smith were married in October of 2008 in Detroit and Trey was in the wedding so we took this weekend as our anniversary weekend since we were without Cecelia and had some time to ourselves. At this time I was no longer working at Triangle and had decided to stay home with Cecelia. I was doing some personal training work at Anytime Fitness but this was a very part time job. Trey had started with Residential Home Health in July and continued to teach at GRCC as an adjunct professor.

2009 brought us back to the same as 2007 expecting our second child on January 29th 2010. To celebrate our 9th anniversary we headed out to the Melting Pot for appetizers before going to see a movie. This was a difficult day for us as we had just found out that the baby was not growing properly and we would need to go see a specialist to see what was going on. It was nice to have some time for just us and to talk.

This brings us to today, our 10 year anniversary. We are now a family of 4 with the addition of Eloise on December 24th 2009. We are still in the same house, Trey is still with Residential Home Health but has taken on a new position as Therapy Supervisor for the west side of the state and continues to teach at GRCC. I am a full time stay at home mom. To celebrate this milestone in our life we have decided to go on a mission trip to Guatemala. We feel we have been so blessed over these last 10 years that we wanted to spend some time giving back. We will be helping to build an orphanage for Open Doors Orphanage. We leave on Saturday morning from Detroit and will be back the following Saturday late in the evening/early morning. We are very excited to be going on this great adventure. The girls will spend half of the week with Jodi's parents and the other half with Trey's parents. We are very fortunate to have family here and willing to take care of our girls. We know that will be in great care and will have tons of fun. Even though we know this it is still hard to leave them. This will be the longest we have ever left them and to be out of the country on top of it is even harder. We do feel that this is something God has called us to do and has made happen so we leave knowing that all will be well.