Be sure, darling, to make all the good times last...

I remember my dad telling me that you never notice how fast time flies until you watch your kid grow up.  Boy, was he right.  Mackenzie turned 5 in November.  FIVE!  It's freaking me out, man! She's reading and writing.  She's doing math.  She hasn't even started school, yet!  I just want her to slow down.  I'm proud, but I miss my baby.  She says "I'm still your baby.  I'll always be your baby, mommy, even when I'm big."  She's wise beyond her years.  She's right though, even when she's 50, she'll still be my baby.  My baby, my awesome, wildly intelligent, headstrong baby.

Yesterday, we discovered she has her first loose teeth, the bottom front two.  She's excited.  I'm... sad. It's just another reminder that she's not so little anymore.

The Long Road Home

All families have a story.  Some are simple; our grandparents met and it was love at first sight!  Others have more complicated stories about how their families came to be.  Our story, the Hales story, is one of the complicated ones.  Let me start from the beginning...

Branden Hales and I met when we were 14.  Seventh period computer applications class, during our freshman year.  We sat back to back.  Both being nerds, typing came easy to us.  We had a lot of free time to get to know one another.  We must have passed over 100 notes that year!  Years went by, the notes got longer and the conversations deeper.  He became one of my closest friends.  Close as we may have been, we never dated.  Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.  Maybe we just weren't ready to settle down.

We managed to stay in touch for a while after graduation, but eventually, like most high school friends do, we lost touch.  Years passed... I got married.  I had my daughter, Mackenzie.  Branden moved to South Dakota.  We sent each other messages to check in from time to time, like old friends do.  You never realize how much you missed talking to a friend until you start talking to them again.  

Flash forward a bit.  I decided that I no longer liked the direction in which my life was heading.  I went back to college.  I ended my marriage.  It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but it is what it is.  Sometimes, things just don't work out the way you plan.  A wise man once said  "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need."  Okay, maybe that wasn't a 'wise' man, but Mick Jagger is still a pretty cool dude, and you get my point.

Around this same time, Branden moved back to Kentucky.  We leaned on each other for support.  I don't think either of us had a real clue about what we were doing.  He was looking for a job and I was trying to figure out how to handle being a full time student and a single mom.  It didn't take long to realize that as messy as our individual lives were, we were better together.

We dated for a while, he moved in, and he became a positive role model for Mackenzie.  His love for her and willingness to be her parent, despite having no real 'tie' to her blows my mind.  That's one of the big reasons that on July 23, 2014, we said "I do."  No planning, no fuss.  We got engaged on Monday, filed for a marriage license on Tuesday, and got married on Wednesday.  We jumped in head first.

Our story is definitely not a fairy tale romance.  No white horse (but there was a blue Mustang!), no castle.   Ours is more unconventional.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Prom--May 2006

Our Wedding day--July 23, 2014