CHEERS TO 1 YEAR!!!

A great reminder of what I got myself into, here are the vows that I wrote and read on our wedding day 1 year ago... September 6th.

I often think back to our first date -it lasted 8 hours b/c we
couldn't stop talking. It was the day after Thanksgiving, 3 years ago
and I vividly remember eating Thai food at Chili Duck and asking you
to simply tell me all about you and how you got to this point in your
life, owning a skateboard shop. You talked for almost an hour and
explained how you worked on this Orchard picking apples in order to
save money to build a skate park with your own 2 hands, and how that
led you to your third business now. I was intrigued by you, and our
relationship flowed very naturally from then on. 2 weeks later you
told me "I'm gonna marry you someday, and I said, well I might have
your baby someday." Fast forward 3 years......

In May of last year, as I sat in an internet café in Spain, chatting
with you on gmail, I was crying because I couldn’t locate your friend
Ethan who was my host for the last week of my 2 month
journey through Europe. I told you that I needed you, and wished you
were there with me. That night I slept on a chair- in the bus station-
by myself, guarding my 28 pound backpack. I eventually found Ethan,
and I constantly talked about you and my indecisiveness. He said
something like “maybe someday I’ll be at your wedding” Which was funny
to me b/c we had broken up a while before my trip.

Little did I know, you were both right and here we are. When I saw
you 2 weeks later, we just couldn’t hold back the flood. It was a
flood of friendship, of love, and of tiny miracles waiting to unfold.
Sometimes, one must literally cross an ocean to realize the love they
need.

Baber, I need you. I always said i would never settle, and I have not
settled, I have found the BEST MAN FOR ME. It's always been so easy
to confide in you, and to be totally myself with no insecurities, and
I know that God blessed me with you because I needed your love and
positivity in my life. You strive daily to be a positive person even
in the midst of difficulty, and you have helped me to grow so much in
positive thinking.

You were there for me through the hardest part of my father’s illness
and death, and continue to comfort me through my loss. The fact that,
after we had only been dating for 2 weeks, you went to Florida and
spent time with my dad while he was well enough to get to know you,
will forever mean so much to me. You remind me that he is always with
me, and one of the greatest things you have taught me from the very
beginning of our relationship, is that we are not our bodies, and not
to hold too tightly to our material world, body, and possessions,
which has helped me to broaden my spiritual perspective.

I know that you hold this belief in the forefront of your mind and it
guides your actions, efforts and decisions daily. For me, you packed
up and left behind your family, friends, home, business, job, and
possessions, with no attachment. For me, you filled that old red
mini-van with as much as you could stuff into it and drove yourself
from Boston to Tampa in 2 days on 5 hours of sleep.

For me, you cooked and cleaned and gave massages and drove me to and
from work every day while i was pregnant. For me, you slept on a
hospital couch for 4 nights during Harmony’s delivery. For me, you get
up every day and work like crazy, driving all over Florida and beyond
to provide for our family, giving me the opportunity to be home with
Harmony. For me, you drove for 2 hours around Massachusetts one day,
just to find pie b/c I wanted it.

In you, I've found a man who is gentle and genuine, giving of your
time, energy and heart to anyone you meet. I found a man who protects
me, provides for me, serves me and loves me just as I am, despite my
many flaws.

I love you for all that you do for Harmony and I. You are such an
amazing father and your involvement and interest in every aspect of
her care and growth is incredible.

I love that you enjoy fashion and will go shopping for hours with me
and give your honest opinions.

I love that you care so much about the environment and watching planet
green with me and that we both get so excited about RECYCLING. I love
that we can enthusiastically teach Harmony to care for her
surroundings and health.

I love that you willingly listen to me babble on for hours about everything.

I love that you appreciate my cooking and always tell me so.

I love you for being the only person who knows how to calm me down
when I’m freaking out or being mean, as you calmly say “you don’t have
to get cranky.” Your calm and gentle response always helps me to see
how crazy I’m being.

I love how humble and understanding you are when we disagree and how
you really listen and try to compromise or change when something is
wrong.

I've always appreciated how you encourage a healthy balance of fun
and hard work, of friendship and alone time, of silliness,
seriousness, and spirituality, of pursuing our own interests and
allowing each other the time for this. I know that maintaining this
balance will help us to build a lasting relationship and I am also
grateful that we both have parents who have been great examples of the
work that it takes to make a marriage last. To my mom and dad, and to
Cindy and John, I want to thank you each for your dedication to your
marriages for over 25 years, which has given us faith that it can be
done. I know it’s not easy, yet I trust that with a solid foundation
of faith and commitment to each other and God, we can make it work as
they did.

And on this day I take you as my husband in full faith that we will
take it one day at a time and make daily efforts to love and grow
together even through the hard times that inevitably arise in every
relationship.

I promise to you that I will strive to encourage and support you in
your interests, To listen when you are stressed out.

To communicate honestly and openly, not expecting you to read my mind
or always know what’s wrong.

To always have skateboards on the walls of at least one room in our
home and to take bike rides with you for as long as I physically can.

I promise to make our lives together full of adventure, laughter, song
and dance.

I promise not to fly, sail, bike, or run away to the other side of the
world without telling you first.

I promise to continuously learn how to love you better, mind, body and
soul, and to remind you of why I do, often. I will strive to simply
love you, in whatever capacity you may need on any given day.

At the beginning of our friendship you asked me to make you a pie
since i love baking them, but you stood me up and I ate it all myself,
I know you'll never do that again. Baber, You are my best friend and
I feel blessed and privileged to give you my heart and my pie today
and every day for the rest of our lives.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I read these every few months so that I can re-focus my heart on who I want to be for my husband, and like I said, I have MANY flaws, yet after 1 year of living with me, he still loves, respects and takes care of me as though we had just met. I am so grateful for our union and for the past year of experiences and adventures together. I must say, I am one lucky beeee-aaaaaatch!!! Love you Mister Jonathan Ernest Devoe... (and I still haven't legally changed my last name, and can't seem to find our marriage certificate... maybe we're not really wed?) haha.

SEE OUR WEDDING VIDEO BY ALEX PELLETIER:
http://vimeo.com/14624267