Reminiscing

I'm thinking about putting together a wedding photo book on blurb.com, so I've been going through the few digital photos that I actually have (thanks to Kate and Eliot) and looking up the lyrics from a few important songs from the wedding. This is going to be quite the task, since NONE of our professionally done photos are digital...that's right, they're all either hard copy or negatives. And the photographer who did our photos retired, taking all of our negatives with her...but she's willing to sell them to us...for $500! So, rather than forking out all that dough to get our negatives back, I'm just going to scan all of our hard copies onto my external hard drive. It will take a while, but it's worth saving the money.

But that's not really what this post is about. It's more about how looking at all these wedding photos has made me reminisce over the time surrounding our wedding. There was a lot of fun, a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of love. I was about to get married to my best friend. We weren't sure if Marla was going to be able to make it to the wedding because she had to have a chemo treatment the week before. And we were having to say goodbye to all of our family and friends in the Portland area in order to move over to Baker, and we weren't sure when we would see them again.

When I was looking up lyrics to a few of our wedding songs, I found the song I danced to with my dad. It was (of course) a song that Jimmy Buffett wrote for his daughter called "Delaney Talks to Statues", and it immediately made me think of my dad. The lyrics were too perfect. I'm definitely a daddy's girl, and some of my favorite memories are of times we spent exploring while sailing around in my parent's boat. Being a big fan of planning surprises, I didn't tell my dad what song we were dancing to, so I didn't know how much that song meant to him until we were actually dancing to it. As soon as the lyrics started, dad started laughing and crying at the same time, and he said "Ever since I first heard this song, it's made me think of you." I love the lyrics so much, I just had to share them.

Delaney Talks to Statues
Jimmy Buffett

Delaney talks to statues
As she dances round the pool
She chases cats through roman ruins
And stomps on big toadstools
She speaks a language all her own
That I cannot discover
But she knows I love her so
When I tuck her neath the covers

Chorus:
Father, daughter
Down by the water
Shells sink, dreams float
Lifes good on our boat

Delaney draws me pictures
She finger paints the sand
We chase the dogs and hop like frogs
Then I do my bad handstands
Shes growin up too fast for me
And askin lots of questions
Some I know the answers to
And some I'm lookin for suggestions

Chorus:
Father, daughter
Born by the water
Surfs up, suns down
Life in a beach town

And some of the things I've seen
Maybe she wont have to see
But theres a lot I want to pass along
That was handed down to me

Delaney talks to statues
As she dances round the pool
She chases cats through roman ruins
And stomps on big toadstools
She speaks a language all her own
Just a little like her mother
And she knows I love her so
When I tuck her neath the covers

Chorus:
Father, daughter
Down by the water
Shells sink, dreams float
Lifes good on our boat
Shells sink, dreams float
Lifes good on our boat

I think for a girl, a wedding is very bittersweet time, especially when it comes to her dad. All the sudden there's another man in her life that has become the most important man in her life, a spot previously held by her dad. This doesn't mean that she loves her dad any less. But now it should be her husband that she runs to after a hard day.

I can't even begin to express how lucky I am in that my husband and my parents get along so amazingly well. My mom and dad are constantly telling other people how much they enjoy Nathan, and I love the fact that Nathan regularly turns to my parents for advice or just someone to talk to. In my parents, Nathan and I have a phenomenal example of what marriage should be.

In the last year and a half, Nathan and I have been through a lot of ups and downs. I never expected to go through a lot of these things so early in our marriage and I sometimes wonder where we would be as a couple if we hadn't been faced with such trials...would we be better off, or have they forces us to be stronger? We'll never know. I will never be one to say that marriage is easy...but when I can't fall asleep at night until Nathan is laying beside me, I know it's all worth it.