As my fifth wedding anniversary approaches I look back and think of how blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband and two great kids. My husband John is the love of my life and my true soul mate. We have two boys, Ryan is thirteen years old, and he is John's son from a previous marriage. Eric is twenty-two months old, and we adopted him when he was four days old, they are the joy of my life.

I met John over five years ago on a blind date. A close friend of mine called me up one night and asked me if I would be interested in meeting this guy she knew name John, and she thought we would make a good match, so I said sure why not. I had no idea what to expect on this blind date, all I knew is that he was a single Dad raising his Son Ryan all alone and he is a Christian.

Well, John turned out to be a sweet, caring, wonderful man with a great sense of humor. We had more in common than I anticipated, and both of us knew right away that we were destined to be together. We had the same goals, similar ideas; we communicated well, and had the same religious beliefs. John proposed to me just two months after our blind date and of course I accepted. It turns out that my friend Alice was right, John and I was a good match indeed! I couldn't think of a more perfect man for me to marry.

John and I made all of our wedding plans together, he was very organized and a tremendous help to me, we actually enjoyed making all of the wedding arrangements. At the time, John was in an accapella singing group call "New Life" and they all sang at our reception, including John. I surprised John and had my friend Alice, sing " A Miracle of a Family" and dedicated to him. Alice was my Maid of Honor and she was in the singing group "New Life", she also was the close friend that introduced me to John. Our wedding turned out beautifully.

On our wedding night John and I had a gift for each other, it turned out we both had bought matching watches without either one of us knowing, (courtesy of a good friend who happens to be our Jeweler). You should have seen the look on both of us when we opened our gifts in amazement; we still get a chuckle over that night.

While we were on our Honeymoon at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California we decided to go to a place that have natural mineral hot tubs on a hillside. We checked in the office and bought some bath salt for the sulfur smell, then we were given directions where our hot tub was. Talk about secluded; it turned out we got lost and finally twenty minutes later we found our hot tub. When we got to the tub, John took one look at the mineral water and said it looked dirty, John proceeded to pour the bath salt in the water and I noticed that he was pouring the salt on top of the spa cover. It was not dirty water after all; it was just the spa cover that made the water look funny. It was too bad there was no more salt left for the sulfur smell.

I still have very fond memories of my new life with John and we continue everyday to create new memories together. Over the last five years John and I have learned to appreciate each other every day, and we never take each other for granted. We also have an open communication, which is so important in a marriage. Many times we have told each other we hope that we will know each other in Heaven because we really enjoy being together, why we even enjoy spending time together on the weekends just doing our weekly errands. So I guess you can say we are working on "A Marriage Made in Heaven".

Colleen Duval

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