1 year

This is how Nick posted it this morning : "Well she played hard to get for several months.....but she finally gave in and decided that maybe I wasnt so bad after all....and 12 months later, here we are...I think at times we have even surprised ourselves it has lasted this long :) ....Love You Natalie."

I think he is right, at times we do surprise ourselves, we disagree, we get annoyed we over think.. like anyone does and we seem to always get through it, to not just try to forget about a disagreement (not that i could let him)  but to deal with it, and figure out the reasons.. eventually and come to some conclusion that even though we have arguments or pet-peeves we (at this point) are who we are, and we love each other because of and in spite of all those oddities that make us the complicated lovable people we are today. Yet always we are growing and changing together. 

Being with Nick is the best relationship I have ever been in.. I have never been with someone who compliments me and challenges me so much, he accepts me for who I am and encourages me to grow in the same moment. He might not always say things how I'd like him to, but I do like how he calls me out on things, even though being called out isn't always what I wanted to hear, but it is what I needed to hear. 

It hasn't been an easy year for me, lots to deal with mentally and emotionally. I have been a royal basket-case. The part where he says 'well she played hard to get for several months' is true, but I always knew Nick was real relationship material, I knew that I had to be careful with my friendship with him, I knew I liked him from the first time he gave me crap back :) Watching my mom slowly wither away last summer was pretty much all my mental brain could handle. So I can see why it came across as 'hard to get', and then once she was gone, I felt like I could kind of see, but the fog of 'what the crap is happening to me' was still amidst my everyday mind. By the first weekend in October I realized I did really really like him, I liked him so much that I crashed him and Cole's trip to Duluth, I did drive myself cause by the time I decided to go they were already on the road so I met up with them once I got there. We went on a train ride, and I remember how our legs touched every so often.. (and I may have been doing it on purpose). Life sped up from then on.. May to the end of September in our relationship went slow for many obvious reasons. But by the 27th of October we were a couple and of course is was 'facebook' official. 

We have weathered a ton in this first year, i secretly hope the next years are a little less weathering. but then life is life, and there is no reason or rhyme to it, bad things happen and good things too. I am just incredibly thankful to have Nick standing with me and me with him. I can't wait to see all that we get to grow and do together in this life.

I love you Nick and thank you so very much for all you do! the seen and unseen, you amaze me in your love for me, and I hope I do the same for you! :)

Now lets make some breakfast for these kiddos ;)

~Natalie