DAYS OF GRATITUDE: Day 12 MY MARRIAGE





Our Wedding Day!



In a world where marriage isn't held as high in esteem as it should be and where couples face trials of divorce, I celebrate the fact that NINE years ago today, Jason and I started our married life together. 

I was the last of the Tuke Clan to take the plunge - though only proper since I am the youngest child! Each of my siblings were married the in Logan Temple by my grandfather who was sealer since the dark ages.  Though he had passed on when it was my turn, I was ok with that - because it true Rebecca fashion, we broke with tradition and married in the Salt Lake Temple instead and would have even if he was alive.. we're kinda crazy like that! (Though come to find out, and it makes it alittle more special, my parents were sealed in Salt Lake as well.)  Apparently, I get that stubborn streak from my parentals!

Proposal Night!

Jason and I had a whirlwind romance... meeting in March of 2001, informally engaged by April, formally engaged on June 8th, and then spent the 4 1/2 months of our engagement apart as he was deployed with the Utah Army National Guard to Kuwait. In making our wedding plans, we were originally planned to wed on a day in February, but after being apart for those 4 1/2 months, we decided to move that special day forward and get married one week after his return!  I couldn't bare spending another second without him! Why wait, right?! 

On the day of wedding, Jason was 29 years old and I was 26,  we obviously didn't fall into the usual Utah mold for marriage of ages 19-22.  However, as we both had numerous opportunities for wedded bliss with other people along the way, and in one instance a wedding  cancelled one week before the big day, those decisions were the best we could have made because they led us to each other! It truly makes my heart smile that I married the perfect person for me.  Though there was plenty of heartaches along the way, we treasure our marriage all the more, knowing that we married the person our Heavenly Father intended us to! And ever since, I have been blessed to have a man in my life who understands and overlooks my flaws and who champions my successes!  I have a true partner in crime and a love that resembles and out does any children's story book.

Our eternal family.

Our day was simply beautiful. Though in November, and I always wanting a winter wedding complete with snow, we were blessed with a warm (55 degree temp) day filled with sunshine! It was also filled with love, happiness, and joyful tears. I will never forget those moments - they are burned in heart and in my memory forever.  I am proud to call him my husband and I am proud to be his wife.  And I am so grateful to have the love we started those 9 years ago grow stronger each day and blossom into the beautiful family we have today.  I am grateful for the knowledge that our marriage is for eternity and that I will never have to be without him or my girls - of course, if I do my part to make that happen!  I have such love for my Heavenly Father who created a plan that allows me to hold on to those things in life that are the most precious - my family.  I am grateful that I don't ever have to say a final goodbye. I am indeed a very blessed and very loved woman, and I thank my lucky stars that my life is filled with love and that I wake up each day loving the man next to me.