Amy J. Bennett

I got my first birthday present today!  One of our youth members I’ve written about several times, Darian, said she had a present for me and dropped it off at the house today.  I kept telling her not to get me anything and if she insisted, to go buy me a candy bar and I’d be more than happy.  The girl wouldn’t listen (will you ever listen to my advice, D??? JK)  and bought me the first 3 seasons of One Tree Hill AND two candy bars!  I was beyond happy.  Chocolate and OTH!  She’s my favorite person right now!

The year I was 21 in 2000, right before I turned 22, I graduated college.  Yippee!  But my graduation isn’t my favorite moment from my 21st year, the week after is.  Mom, Dad, Scott and I went on a seven day cruise out of Florida, to the Cayman Islands, Mexico and New Orleans.  College was a lot of work for me.  I got good grades but that’s because I worked for them.  I worked part-time throughout the whole four years and as I mentioned before, we got married halfway through.  Just for the record though my grades improved after getting married and it was SO much easier.  Still..a lot of work.  So that week I felt freedom!  We got to experience new things and places and it was just so relaxing, non stressful and the perfect celebration to my graduation.

I have a few, bad pictures from that time.  These were taken off our digital camcorder.

Alrighty, folks.  In 10 little days, I’ll be done with my twenties and it’s the big ‘ol 30th birthday.  Ten days left to say goodbye to my twenties.  So I’m going to take a look back and for each of the last ten days, post on a favorite memory for each of the last ten years.

A lot has happened since 10 years ago today when I was 20 and that’s where we’ll start.  I was in between sophomore and junior year in college and about 3 weeks away from our wedding.  Only 19.  I really didn’t realize how young I was.  I still remember someone saying, “You’re very young..you understand this is forever?”  Of course! I said thinking she was mighty crazy and I knew what I was doing.  Plus I was going to be 20 when I got married for goodness sakes.  That day 10 years ago seems like forever ago.  I’ll have to post more on that on our anniversary coming up but for now I’ll say the day was great.

I woke up in my little twin bed in my room for the last time.  I remember being so relaxed as I knew people were busy preparing for the day.  The wedding was pretty big.  We had seven bridesmaids, seven ushers, a flower girl, roses, candlebras, a horse and carriage, bubbles, about 200 guests (I think..my old mind can’t remember)..everything that made up my dream wedding.  It went off without a hitch unless you count Scott saying “all my wordly needs I thee endow” instead of “all my worldly goods I thee endow.” I still think I’m paying for that one.

We had a nice reception in our FLC at church and then headed off for a week in Florida, stopping at a bed and breakfast for our first night together.  And let’s just emphasize again here how young, clueless and inexperienced I was.  So yeah, moving on.  I guess it’s pretty typical to pick the wedding as my favorite moment of the year but really, it was the quintessential moment of my twenties.

And I couldn’t do a post like this without pictures (and sorry this is before the big digital photo thing so I had to take snapshots from our album)…

So Mr. Balance Board of my Wii Fit world and I continue a rocky relationship.

Yesterday I did not work out and his first words to me today were, “Too busy to work out yesterday, eh?”  No, but what’s it to ya??

THEN, he says, “Scott’s birthday is coming up.  Have you bought him a present yet, maybe planned a suprise party?”  Note to self…get Scott a birthday present.

And to cap it off, after he measured my weight and congratulated me for losing a 1lb, he proceeded to say, “Well, just so you know, your last weigh-in was at 9:36 pm and a person tends to fluctuate about 2 lbs every day.”  Well, thanks for nothing, then.

Yeah, Mr. Balance Board and I are still trying to work this thing out.  So far it’s not looking good.

As it stands, we’re going to send Emma to our public school here.  There is no rhyme or reason that swayed us either way.  I can see benefits for both private and public and I haven’t ruled the private school out for the future.  It’s just all of us have been praying and waiting and I don’t think anyone feels an urgency for her to go to the private school.  And that’s that.

The next two weeks are going to be busy I believe.  This week the kids have summer camp at their preschool from 8:30-12:30 every day.  That will be FANTASTIC.  I know they miss school and I know I miss school.

Saturday the kids will be headed to our local baseball game with my SIL.

Next Sunday we leave for Myrtle Beach with Scott’s family for our annual beach trip.  That Friday is my big ‘ol 30th birthday I’ve been DREADING.  I am somewhat looking forward to it now though as Mom and Heather booked us rooms in Wilmington, NC for Friday and Saturday night.  We plan to tour the set and look at a bunch of the filming locations.  Hopefully somewhere in there will be a GRAND birthday dinner.

The patches so far are holding up.  The pool is still filling up but is almost done.  Looks like it’s temporarily going to work.  The big test will be when the weather clears and we get back in!