Better Together

In early January, Ian and I celebrated 5 years of being "us."

Read about it here and here.

I had full intentions of sharing pictures of us through the years, but I never got around to getting them off of our external hard drive and I'm just now getting to it.

I think it's really important to have pictures of you and your husband throughout the years. Sure you'll take thousands of pictures of your babies and of you and your babies, but will you take pictures of you and your spouse during all phases of your life? I think of my parents and I'm not sure if we have one good picture of them for each year or not! And that is just SO sad!

I spent a couple of hours collecting pictures from all sorts of files so that I would officially have an "Ian and Brittney," file.

One day, my kids will thank me.
So, three months late, here's a little look at Ian and Brittney circa 2005-2011.

But first, a song that takes me back to the beginning of our dating, Better Together by Jack Johnson. We danced to it on the roof of his apartment in Amman, Jordan. We listened to it on many a car trips to the beach. We danced to it at our wedding (though it wasn't our first dance,) and I had it as my ringtone during our first year of marriage.

So many memories wrapped up in one simple song:

Better Together by Jack Johnson

There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard,
No song that I could sing
But I can try for your heart, 
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things,
Like a shoebox of photographs,
With sepiatone loving, 
Love is the answer 
At least for most of the questions in my heart ,
Like why are we here? And where do we go? 
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy, 
And sometimes life can be deceiving, 
I'll tell you one thing, its always better when we're together   

[Chorus:] MMM, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together 
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together   [

Verse 2:] And all of these moments 
Just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone,
When the morning light sings 
And brings new things,
But tomorrow night you see 
That they'll be gone too,
Too many things I have to do,
But if all of these dreams might find their way
Into my day to day scene
I'll be under the impression,
I was somewhere in-between
With only two,
Just me and you 
Not so many things we got to do, 
Or places we got to be 
We'll sit beneath the mango tree now

Ian and I, on our youth group senior trip. 10 of us on a mini bus, traveling around the Atlanta area. It was during this time when I came to realize how much I liked him. One of my best friends liked him too, and to me, she had dibs, so there was no way I was going to let him know how I felt!Ian and I, Summer of 2005
We began dating on January 7th, 2005, and had one week together before he left for school in Virginia. When he returned for spring break, I was so happy I thought my little heart would explode. Love his smile in this one.Ian and I, March 2006

We spent the summer apart- him doing summer school in Virginia, me working at a summer camp outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When I returned, we had exactly 6 days before he had to leave for a year in Jordan. For some reason, I thought it would be a great idea to spend an entire day during that short week with my best friends at Disney. Poor Ian came along just because he wanted to be with me.
August 2006

We ended up having a great time and I got one of my all time favorite pictures snapped during that day. Ian's adoration is apparent.

Plus my tan is awesome.

Ian left for Jordan and we continued our long distance relationship via Skype.

Ian was able to come home for Christmas for 2 weeks.

December 2006


We knew for about 6 months that we would get married, it was all a matter of being in the same 50 mile radius for longer than 2 weeks.
I had a roaring case of pink eye and strep throat during this entire visit, and all of my pictures has me very squinty eyed. We enjoyed a night out for our "one year," anniversary and dreamed together about the following summer, when he and I would be home.

That spring was unbearable for me. I missed him so much and just needed to see him. So, although my parents didn't want me to (but they didn't forbid it,), I paid for, arranged, and flew to Jordan to see Ian for 10 days. I stayed with 2 other girls that were there doing internships and we had an amazing time exploring the country.

Wadi Rum, Jordan, March 2007

Petra, Jordan, 2007
Finally! 1 and a half years later, Ian and I were in the same place for almost 12 glorious weeks. Although I was taking a full course load and he was working 30-40 hours a week, we spent every possible minute together and LOVED it! Ian proposed on July 7th, 2007 and we began dreaming about our life together.

I can never express how wonderful that summer was. Though we loved every minute of learning about each other through verbal communication only (phone and skype for a year and a half,) there was something so special about him being able to hold me while I cried or for me to be able to wrap my arms around him when he was frustrated.

Ian left for his third and final year of school (we both graduated from college in 3 years thanks to very full course loads and AP classes,) in early August, and I went up to visit him during mid October.

Us at Monticello, October 2007.
Us, hiking the Devil's Marbleyard, October 2007. We love hiking, and though this wasn't our first hiking excursion together, it was (and still is,) one of our favorite places ever! We've been back since then and plan on going again in the future.

Easter break, 2008

I'll spare you the hundreds of wedding pictures and just say we got married on June 14th, 2008, on what will always be the happiest day of my life. We were together, and wouldn't have to live apart again (at least, we hope not!)

Honeymoon, Duck Key, Florida, 2008

Honeymoon. We cut the trip 2 nights short so that we could get Ian back in time for an interview that he got a call for. the interview ended up being a complete hoax and we regret cutting our trip short, so we've promised ourselves we're going back for our 5 year anniversary, the next time we are in the States.

Rhode Island, 2008

We spent our first year of marriage in Gainesville, FL, with Ian working on his Masters degree and me hunting for my first teaching job. I won't lie. That first year was rough. Not because married life wasn't fabulous, but because so many things were uncertain- like how we were going to pay rent and where God was leading us.
Ian had another first, carving his first jack o lantern! Wow, my hair had gotten long!
University of Florida, 2009

10 months later and Ian graduated with his Masters. We had direction for our life and were so excited about the steps to come!
May, 2009.
The summer and fall of 2009 took a much different detour than we expected, and we ended up living with our parents for almost 8 months.
Ian and I, December 2009, Tennessee

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Better Together