My, How Times Have Changed

Ten years ago Mitch and I celebrated our first New Year's Eve together.  We had just started dating, and I rushed to his apartment that he shared with the girls to celebrate after arriving back in Champaign from a bowl trip to Florida with the MI.  We had Bacardi Limon and Sprite and sat underneath the mistletoe (which his roommates found humorous, since we had just started dating.  Damn, those girls used to intimidate me.  Now I am proud to call them some of my best friends.)  Anyway, as I sit here tonight at 9:00 with a personal bottle of champagne and wonder if I'll ever make it until midnight (let's face it, I won't), I can't help but reflect over the first decade of the new millennium.

In the last ten years......

• Mitch and I started dating and got married within two years.  Have I ever told you about our first "date"?  I suggested we go out for drinks after our Music History final exam, and so off we went to Murphy's for pitchers of Icehouse and burgers.  A walk back to my apartment and a little making out, and the rest is history.  Mitch and I got engaged on New Year's Eve 2000; he brought over a bottle of champagne and some bridal magazines and popped the question.  It was easily one of the happiest days of my life.  
• We graduated from college and both have earned master's degrees.  And are still paying off the loans. 
• We have moved eight times and lived in three different states.
• Between the two of us, we have visited sixteen states and Canada.
• We have held thirteen jobs (but not at the same time, of course).  
• We have made wonderful friends all over the country.  I hate that as adults when you live far away from so many of them that you rarely get to see them.  
• We have lived with our parents at various times during the decade.  While it's never easy to go home, our parents have always made the transition seamless for us.  We are so lucky to have such wonderful, supportive parents.
• We had our little Gizmo, who really completes our lives.  I know I've mentioned before that Mitch and I weren't sure if we were ever going to have kids before, but we both agree that it was the best decision we've ever made.  There is no greater pleasure than listening to your husband and daughter giggle and laugh while they play together.  

The last decade has given us many ups, some downs, and lots of laughs, we look forward to the next decade (our thirties - yikes!) and what opportunities will present themselves.  What do you hope to have happen in the next decade?