I would do it all over again

And so we did. During our trip to Hawaii, Aaron surprised me by proposing all over again and arranging for a pastor to renew our vows along the beach as the sun was setting. Beautiful. Awesome.  Incredible. These words are all insignificant to describe the moment, but they say a picture is like a 1,000 words. Maybe this will work then:

Just in case I didn't already feel overwhelmed, Aaron asked Pastor Paul to incorporate the exchange of rings into the ceremony (along with the exchange of laes).  When he asked Aaron to place the ring on my finger and repeat after him, Aaron slid a ring on my finger that I had never seen before...a new ring to commemorate our 10 years together.  I gasped and could only look at him in awe.  He had gone above and beyond my wildest imagination...I thought it was all about a trip to Hawaii.  Little did I know he'd planned so much more.

I later found out that he'd been planning to do this for months, and had searched out Pastor Paul from a neighboring town to come to our resort and perform the ceremony.  I feel so blessed to have Aaron, to have spent over 10 years together in marriage, and to have two beautiful, healthy girls.  God has been so good to us, and I couldn't help but feel His presence as we stood in this beautiful place and recommitted our union in His kingdom on earth.  I hope I always hold on to these moments.

There was a small chapel on the grounds of our resort where we took some pictures.  Later that evening, after our own ceremony, we were able to see a young couple enter the church to say their vows for the first time.  It was a beautiful scene filled with joy and love.  The whole evening was powerfully sweet.

It wouldn't have felt like our 2nd wedding without ending the night at an on-site restaurant.  The day we were married, we ate a late dinner in our hotel restaurant..."Appleby's", yes, I'm spelling it correctly.  This was a hotel airport restaurant, which happened to carry a similar name to the popular chain.  It was a bit of a dive, but we didn't care.  For this adventure, it was the Mokolini Bistro at our resort.  It had outstanding food, but was quite casual and nothing glamorous.  But it was perfect, of course.

3rd Time's a Charm

September 10th marked 3 years since Maren came storming into this world.  Our spunky little girl is quite the firecracker, and she'll make sure you know it.  She's also as sweet as can be, but just make sure you're on her good side!

I've got a lot of pictures here, primarily because as I looked back through them, she was just so darn cute!  Some of these really capture her personality (at least at age 3) so I wanted to make sure I documented them.

We held the festivities at the lake this year, and it looks like I made the executive decision to use a Hello Kitty cake.  You can't go wrong with that!

You'll notice Kayla in the background chowing down on the cake.  That girl loves a good party and thinks a cake goes with every celebration (hard to argue with her logic)!  Not that Maren didn't dig into the icing too.  Yum!

As a general practice, I tried to avoid bold colored frosting, but sometimes you just have to go with it!

I just loved her smile in this one. The excitement on her face when she opened up her bling!

I begged my family to get Maren some new Fancy Nancy books.  Maren has taken a strong liking to this character (plus she looks a little bit like her), and I've been forced to read Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas a billion times.  I couldn't take it anymore!!!!  Yes, I realize I could have gone out and bought some other ones myself, but we already have so many books that I just couldn't bring myself to do it without a special occasion involved.

Aunt Kelly found the Fancy Nancy doll, which is just too cute.  Between the Rapunzel dress, jewelry and doll, she was looking pretty fancy herself!

CHEESE!