10 years. 4 daughters. 2 states. It’s hard to put into words what a marriage of 10 years looks like. Honestly, it was pretty messy, heart breaking, joy filled, God saved, and oh so much more. But todays post is about the day we chose to take a NEW vow to one another.
This is something that I had wanted to do for a very long time. At different times in our marriage, both Josh and I had broken our vows to one another in a few different ways. I’m sure as time goes on we will open up more about that journey and how God has completely restored something terribly ugly and made it into something beautiful. So this is the puzzle piece of a NEW vow for two completely NEW people that had been transformed by Christ.
We had the amazing privilege to take a trip with our very best friends, Myke and Holly. They stood by us through some amazingly tough times and when we decided we were going to renew our vows, we knew we wanted them by our side. Both couples were able to find childcare for our combined 8 children (yes, yes, I know we are all crazy) and off on this crazy adventure to New Zealand we went.
Our original anniversary date is December 29th, but through a series of happenings Josh and I decided that we wanted a NEW day for a NEW vow. So we chose January 1, 2018! Well, there are a few things about having a celebration on a holiday (and one that the whole WORLD celebrates) that we didn’t take into consideration. So… that made some interesting kinks in our plans…
I guess it all started right at the countdown to the New Year. Here we were, on the other side of the world, racing through a field to try to get to the big concert/fireworks and countdown. Well, we didn’t make it… so at midnight, our whole group was scattered as the New Year began. Looking back now kinda makes me laugh that Josh and I got so irritated. I suppose it was because we knew this would be the start of a new year and a new life… so we had this “perfect picture” that we already couldn’t measure up to.
Then we slept for about 5 hours, got up, and caught a flight to Queenstown. I was TIRED guys! I HARDLY ever sleep on the plane. I’m the talker… and I’m an entrepreneur with my own business, so I try to use as many moments as I can to network with new people. Well, I was NOT planning to do that on this flight. I got to my seat, put my pashmina on like a blanket, put earplugs in, covered my eyes with my eye mask, AND had my hoodie up… Picture that in your mind… k… got it?…. Well, apparently, that was a clue for the person BEHIND me to tap me on the shoulder and start a conversation… I am NOT kidding, haha. Like legit, “hey, what do you think about…” full blown asking me questions about everything. I ‘might’ have had a few colorful words cross my mind, but my mom and pop taught me right… So I obliged to his conversation. All the while I could see Josh out of the corner of my eye, sitting next to Myke, two rows back (because, well, we were both still not feeling it from the night before), sitting there chuckling at how I literally draw EVERYONE to talk to me… Even when I don’t try to…
Obviously I didn’t get the sleep I had hoped for…
After we landed in Queenstown we got what we all needed. The beautiful views!! AND a large cup of coffee lol.
We headed towards our AirBnB on public transportation, jumped off at our 
stop… which was “just down the street” from our place… and WOW it sure was DOWN from where we were staying. We walked up a VERY steep street all the way up to our place… It took about a half hour, HAHA, in the heat, when I already had my hair fixed for the vow renewal later that day LOL. Seriously, we were all DRENCHED in sweat when we got there. It was then that we decided we might need to call a cab to take us later for the vow renewal.
After we all showered off and sat on the amazing porch for a few minutes we decided to go grab some lunch (yes lunch… it was a LONG day). We grabbed lunch and decided to split up to finish some last minute things. Josh and I went to look for flowers and Myke and Holly wanted to finish up a few things for the actual vow renewal wording. I had planned to just buy some live flowers the day of… but I didn’t think about it being New Years Day (insert “ugh” face here). All the flower shops were closed… But I did remember seeing some beautiful flowers in people front yards as we were climbing the worlds steepest street (ok, so it probably wasn’t THAT steep, but my mind remembers it that way, so I’m rolling with it). I figured I would just “prune” some plants later that day, lol.
We met back up with Myke and Holly to all raise a glass with our own time zones New Years since we had all “missed the moment” the night before. So we met at this great little pub and searched for a live countdown on youtube… except that the countdown for Dallas wasn’t coming up! We had TOTALLY miscalculated and were about 3 hours off, HAHA!! So we all had a GREAT laugh and decided that we would all raise our glass and toast to the New Year right alongside Rio De Janeiro, Brazil!! HAHAHA!! We decided we might need to make that our own “Kaylor/Barron” tradition! THAT is seriously what turned the whole day around. We had all been SO tense in trying to make everything perfect. But life isn’t perfect. Even individual days aren’t going to be perfect. That was a huge reminder to just let it go!
To be continued…