For our 20th wedding anniversary, I commissioned my super-talented friend,
Courtney to make the first home Christian and I bought and lived in
together as part of our Christmas village collection.
Last year, she created The White House, which turned out amazing!!!!
"The Pioneer House," as we called it, was in downtown Provo, Utah.
It was close to BYU, where Christian was studying, and close to my family,
the mountains, and, of course, the Provo bakery.
The Pioneer House turned 100 years old the year
we moved in, and we lived there for three years while Christian finished school,
worked full-time, and we had two beautiful daughters, Claire and Jane.
That home is where it all began for us.
Some of the best memories happened in those walls.
When the weather was nice, I'd take the girls and sit on the
front steps with popsicles. We'd wait for Christian to get home from work or
watch him get off the bus from school.
(Lucky for us, his bus stop was just a block away).
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| Me and Claire December 2001 |
When the weather was cold, I'd sit in the living room where
my rocking chair was, and I nursed my babies near the big front room
picture frame window and watch
cars go by, students walk past with big backpacks,
and perhaps my favorite: watching the snowfall.
We had a fireplace in that room, and sometimes Christian would light
a fire for me before he left early for school
so when I'd wake up, the house would be warm.
I'd feed the fire all day, truly feeling like a pioneer mother keeping
the home front warm for the family.
Life was so simple then.
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| Christian, Claire, and me in front of The Pioneer House, 2016 |
Twenty years later, life is a little more complicated, and we've
experienced so many different things together.
Good and hard.
But our love for each other and the Gospel of Jesus Christ
has stayed the same. Those will never change.
A marriage cannot last without the good and bad.
It's good to struggle as long as it is done together,
and with the Lord.
Christian and I really appreciated what Apostle David A. Bednar said
today in his IG post as we evaluated our life together
over the past 20 years:
"I invite you to strive to ever more consistently let what God
wants for you take priority over what you want for you.
Seek to recognize and understand His will and timing in your life.
As you do so, you will be directed, protected, and blessed spiritually
and temporally in ways that you today cannot possibly imagine."
AMEN.
