a DECADE! AH!

fun lil' shot from halloween party via 2009

Pregnant with Parker

days before i had Andie

my wedding day :)

aaa yes...20 years old...spring break...tennis team miami...

Today is my 30th birthday and so i decided to blog about, well ME! :)

I was running on the treadmill and thinking about what a difference 10 years makes. 10 years ago i was about to be a junior in college at pitt. I remember that year being a particularly good year...i trained hard and worked my way up to the number 3 spot on the pitt tennis team...and had a great year in college. But that all pails in comparison to what happend the next 10 years.

In that 10 years I graduated college, got a masters degree, moved 8 times to include 5 different states...got married, changed jobs 3 times, bought 2 houses, started my own business (albeit a very small business...but i think of jerry maguire...may be just a few girls, but i give a lot of heart to those that are there), went through 2 deployments of husband being gone, (charging through the 3rd now) made a ton of friends all over the country, lost a couple of very special family members, have grown about 25 gray hairs and somewhere in there still managed the time to have 3 beautiful children, each born in a different state!

There are definately things that stick out in my mind...and some of the hard times like matt's deployment in 2005, i can clearly remember every detail about the day he left (LONG day), and all the people around us (some of which tragically never made it back), and the buidling that held all of us as we said our goodbyes right before they boarded the busses. I remember walking away with whom would soon become some of my great friends. The day of one of matt's friend's funeral that died in iraq...i also have very vivid memories of everything about that day. And then the passing of my Grandmothers.

But the great times far exceed the sad. I've gotten the chance to live in beautiful colorado springs and hike up some of the most gorgeous mountains, work with some of the best people a girl could ask for (who also so happend to become some of my best friends), live in the high desert and get to experience tombstone, and meet some incredible people. Some of the best days were my graduations, matt's homecomings, the day i got proposed too, our wedding day, the honeymoon, buying our first house...but nothing comes close to the birth of our 3 kids, those 3 days will forever be the best days in my life. It's totally cliche...but i feel like those 3 days were definately gifts from God...and so are my kids.

While i feel that right now, my children are probaby the biggest part of my life and consumes a lot of who I am and what i do, i dont' feel that they alone define me. I still have an inner athlete that just wants to get out and compete, a musician that wants to just sit down for a couple hours and play the piano, a student that would love to learn more and learn new fields of study, a trainer/physiologist, a friend, and a traveler who just so happens to not get to travel much, and deep DEEP down inside a girl that likes to party (4 years of pregnancy and nursing kind of suppresses that. :) ) But i wouldn't trade this life in...i have 3 of the funniest, loving kids i know...and they keep me going.

It will be interesting what the next 10 years bring...hard to believe at 40 I will have a 10, 12, and 14 year old child. AH!