What we learned in 1 year of marriage.

When people say that the first year of marriage is the hardest, I always let that opinion go in one ear and out the other. Our first year of marriage hasn't been perfect by any means and how boring would that have been? We have learned a lot about each other and also accomplished a lot together as a team. Here's a few things we learned in our first year of marriage.

1. Always pray with one another. Start the day with prayer and if you stay awake long enough, end the day with prayer together.

2. When needing to use the restroom or the shower check with the other spouse before hand. We only have one restroom so it's important and super nice to double check with one another before we take it over for a while. What happens in the restroom, stays in the restroom.

3. The balance of family and marriage is important. With so many family members, birthday parties, and get togethers it's important to learn to balance everything and to remember that our marriage takes effort and if we don't take the time to put the effort into it then it will become second to everything else.

4. Always communicate. With both of us it's important to keep the communication going even when we find ourselves in a busy week. We have also learned that there are moments when it's ok to pause the communication in order to respond with the right tone and the right mindset. However, the longer you stay angry the worse things will get. Fix it if it needs fixin'.

5. Laugh and laugh a lot. There is a lot of laughter in our marriage. Laughing at ourselves and with each other. Joy in a marriage is important!

6. Serve one another without looking for a thank you in return. I (bee) can have trouble with this sometimes and will look for acknowledgment for things that I have done thinking that I deserve a thank you. Serving one another in marriage is the secret to a great marriage.  I choose to have a great marriage instead of a thousand "thank you's."

7. Trusting God with our story. About 4 months into our marriage God was really speaking to both of us about trusting him in regards to adding children to our family. We were told others opinions and for some reason it just never really lined up with what we were feeling for our future family. We continued to pray about it and put everything in God's hands. Now we sit here today awaiting the arrival of our first born little boy. See, God knew!

8. Work as a team when handling our finances. When we got married we made it a goal to take care of our debt and start fresh together as soon as possible. Thankfully we didn't have a lot and we tackled it within the first few months of marriage. We both believe that not allowing ourselves to accumulate a whole bunch of debt has really freed us up as a couple to bless others around us and also to travel and visit family more.

9. Check in with one another. This may be scary but it also may be insightful. It's good to see if we're doing something that is just really minor but kind of annoying to the other one. For instance, I (bee) will forget to rinse dishes out after eating dinner and then "accidentally" forget to wash the dishes at night so the next morning there are dishes with food stuck all over them. That's a minor check in but was something that was annoying Fabian. I am still a work in progress but I think he will tell you I am getting better.

10. Have fun in your marriage. Don't take everything so seriously. Don't miss memories because of your attitude. Do life with one another because you are better together!

- F & B