Florida the first time

Checking out the St Louis Arch. I miss the days when the men wore the "short" shorts!

Checking out Colorado on our way to Florida. I thanked my new husband for doing such a nice job composing this picture and waiting to snap the picture only when everything looked just right :) In fairness I was experiencing a really bad perm at the time!

Don't we look happy? Married 6 months we had packed all we owned, which consisted of 1 bed, two dressers, one indestructible table with 4 chairs and a lamp, ( I still have the lamp) and drove in our Dodge Colt from Walla Walla to Orlando.

This is the only picture I can find of Jeff and I together while we lived in Florida (except for one were I'm wearing a bikini and while I thought I was fat then I would kill to look like that now!)

I was soooo excited! After a ridiculously large semi truck came by to pack our stuff and promised to deliver it safely to Orlando in a week or so.... Jeff and I were going on our first road trip! We had very little money and our plan was to drive across the country stopping in homes of people we could mooch off of along the way. The problem was there was a long stretch between Colorado City and Nashville, Tenn where we didn't know a soul...

I was excited because I had always wanted to travel. Go somewhere new and here was the chance. We were all grown up, married and heading out on our own. It was an important time. Jeff and I have often discussed how we think being out on our own early in our marriage really strengthened us. We fought and had our growing pains as we tried to figure out life as a married couple but while living so far from any family there was no one to run to. We had to face each other, we were all we had...

Now we have been married 21.5 years and we are facing the possibility of moving back...We don't fight near as much and we really enjoy living near family and we have awesome friends.

Still waiting for the phone to ring...hoping it doesn't