He was right.

"Raight, ya'll get a nice camera for Christmas, get on mah raft and ahll take yuh within fifty feet uh the largest population of bald eagles in the lower forty-eight!"

It was a big surprise for Kyle: Two hours north of Seattle, I booked a white- water rafting trip for our four year anniversary. Our hillbilly guide, a fifteen-year-old self-proclaimed nuclear physicist, his father, me, and darling Kyle, in a raft. The clouds dumped torrential rain, and we laughed our way down the rapids of the icy Sauk river. The river was moving so quickly that we ran the rapids twice, with a short hot chocolate brake in between. Afterward, we changed into warm, dry clothes and drove to the only restaurant in town for romantic hamburgers and shakes.

Four years isn't that long, I guess. There was a couple on the Smucker's segment of the Today show last week who had been married for 75 years! But I think we've done a lot of living so far. We both graduated from college, had two beautiful babies, lived in the Middle East, and finally got a grown-up job in Washington. And in each new phase of our life together, I manage to helplessly tumble deeper and deeper in love with him.

Our first anniversary!

My graduation from BYU, London was 13 days old!

Our little family in Jerusalem.

Kyle's Graduation!!!

Waiting for our sweet Elle...

And our family now.

Kyle is my constant in the painful mess called life. He doesn't know how to be anything but good and kind. Sometimes I look at him, and I just think to myself, "Holy cow. How on earth did I get so lucky." And he always says the same thing to me, when he sees me staring at him like a dazed thirteen-year-old girl...He smiles, " You love me, don't you?" It reminds me of when I first knew... in his mother's kitchen when he took me home for Thanksgiving; only that time, he said, "You want to marry me, don't you?" And he was right.