Happy 11 years, my love.

Happy Anniversary to my love.  In honor of our 11 years together, I want to remember something special from each year.  I wish I had the pictures to go with the memories, but some things are just forever embedded on your heart and a picture is not even necessary.  

• First year (2002) - During our first year of marriage, David was serving as a youth pastor in Marmaduke, Arkansas.  We had the greatest kids in all the land.  They still are.  We won't talk about the fact that many of them are married and parents now, yikes!  I love that social media allows us to easily keep up with them.  
• Second year (2003) - It was this year that the Lord called us away from Marmaduke and through a series of events led us to work our first summer of FUGE as a married couple and eventually moved us to New Orleans for seminary.  
• Third year (2004) - A love/hate relationship with the city of New Orleans began.  Throughout this year, the love grew stronger and stronger, and it's definitely one of our very favorite cities today.  We worked another summer of FUGE together in Nashville for the second summer in a row and loved every minute of it.  
• Fourth year (2005) - David graduated from seminary, we worked our final summer of Fuge, moved to Atlanta, where David was on staff at First Atlanta, and I began teaching third grade at the Heiskell School and learned we were expecting our first baby.  Such a fun year with so many new things!
• Fifth year (2006) - Our big baby boy was born!  We learned we really didn't know as much about being parents as we thought, and we learned that babies don't come out knowing how to sleep all night, ha!  David also completed his one year internship at FBA and began a new position at Sandy Plains Baptist Church in Marietta.  We bought our very first home on Randall Drive.  And we found out we were having another baby! 
• Sixth year (2007) - Our big baby girl was born!  I continued to teach at Heiskell, and David began seeking senior pastorate positions.  And we found out we were having another baby! Don't worry, we figure it all out this time.  
• Seventh year (2008) - David became the senior pastor at FBC Austell.  He also began the doctoral program at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  Our Tilly girl was born.  We sold our house on Randall Drive and bought our second house on Brooks Drive.  We learned that this parenting thing was not as hard as we thought, and we might know a little bit of what we were doing.  Oh, and we gave in to the swagger waggon movement.  Don't worry this was just a phase.  
• Eighth year (2009) - We settled nicely into our lives as a party of five.  We tried our hand at being domestic and planted a garden, canned some stuff, and made our own baby food.  David continued pasturing Austell, and I continued to teach at Heiskell.  And we found out we were having another baby!  Party of six, here we come!
• Ninth year (2010) - Our sweet Story was born.  I moved to a part time position at our school, so I could spend some more time at home.  We took our family to New Orleans for the first time.  We returned a second time in December because David became Dr. David O'Dell!  
• Tenth year (2011) - What a year! I became a stay at home mom.  The children enrolled at a new school in Powder Springs.  The Lord called our family to move to Hattiesburg, MS, so David could become the senior pastor of Hardy Street Baptist Church.  David and I spent three awesome days just us in New Orleans to celebrate our anniversary.  
• Eleventh year (2012) - David has thrived in his new position here in MS, and I have loved watching him dream and grow.  He has been on television and the radio to share about the exciting things going on at our church.  We took our family to the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans.  The girls became little ballerinas, and Carter played his first season of flag football.  David was hospitalized and had major surgery.  I took pictures of several beautiful families and began having Bible study in our home with some of the sweetest college girls in all the land.  What a great year it has been!  
• Twelfth year (2013) - We have much to be thankful for and look forward to.  Thanks to some of those sweet college girls, David and I will get to celebrate with a date Sunday night!  

David, thanks for asking me to be your wife.  Thanks for putting up with me for all these years.  Thanks for making me laugh so hard my sides hurt.  Thanks for making me smile so hard my cheeks hurt.  Thanks for teaching me to love so deep my heart feels like it may burst.  You are my favorite.  I love you to the moon and back a whole bunch of times.