Let's Make A Memory

It's Valentine's week and love is in the air!! Today I'm taking on all the man crushing and linking up with Erin at Perfectly Port Family and sharing 10 memories with the love of my life, Mr. Horton. I can't tell you how excited I am about this post! I spent quite a few hours Friday night digging through old photographs from our twenty-five years together (one year of dating, one year engaged, and twenty-three years of marriage). We had a fun evening looking back at old pictures and reminiscing. I am so blessed, y'all! I love you, Wayne!



1. Wayne and I met in January 1993. I was dating his college roommate. Jeffrey and I were watching a movie one night and Wayne walked in carrying a Taco Bell bag, sat down in the recliner and proceeded to talk to us during the rest of the movie.  I thought, "How rude!"

Our first Christmas as a couple, December 1993

2. On our first date, he picked me up in a jeep. With the top off! I wasn't happy about that because of course, I didn't want to mess my hair up and it was a forty-five minute drive to the restaurant. I never kissed on the first date. "Good girls" just didn't do that. But when Wayne walked me to the door that night and leaned in to kiss me, I just knew right then that I was going to marry him and so I broke my own rule and kissed my future husband on the first date. 

Valentine's Day 1998, when vests were still in style

3. Wayne proposed in TCBY nearly a year and a half later. We both loved their white chocolate mouse yogurt, so it was kinda "our" place. I thought I had just failed an accounting test and so he treated me to yogurt and my engagement ring. Yes, he got down on one knee and I called my mom from the payphone outside to tell her the news. 

Our engagement photo and reminder to not get your hair cut the day before pictures. Ever. I look so much like my maternal grandmother in this picture I think. 

4. Our wedding day! We were married on April 22, 1995, and a spring monsoon hit during our ceremony. In our wedding video, you can see the lightening and the trees swaying through the church windows. 

Such babies

Our honeymoon in Natchez, Mississippi, 1995

5. Wayne's dad died in August 1998 of pancreatic cancer. That was a difficult time for us and the first time we had to experience the death of a parent. There is still such a loss there, but we hold on to our hope of seeing him again one day.

At my sister-in-law's wedding, 1999

6. Studying for the CPA exam was tough, but Wayne was my biggest cheerleader. I would get so discouraged and yet he always believed in me. He would come home late at night from work and call my flashcards out to me before we went to bed. He likes to tell people that HE could have taken that test and passed it as much as he helped me study for it! 

March 1999 in Shreveport, Louisiana receiving my CPA certificate from the State Board of Accountancy

7.The first time Wayne and I ever bought a house, I thought we were signing our life away. We paid $90,000 for our first starter home and we had some wonderful memories there. 

Spring 2005; We would bring our baby girl home in a few weeks. I had the best hair when I was pregnant!

8. Our precious Baby Girl was born on May 26, 2005. We had been through so much and we just cried tears of joy. I will never forget the expression on Wayne's face as he held her in that hospital room. I couldn't believe we were a family of three.

Wayne's first Father's Day, June 2005. It was only appropriate to visit his father's grave that day.

9. We've traveled lots of places over our nearly twenty-three year marriage, but my favorite place will forever be Hawaii. We took a 7-day cruise to all the Hawaiian islands for our 20th anniversary. It was a trip of a life time and one that I will always remember. 

Lake Tahoe, Nevada 2000

Dillon, Colorado, March 2004

Hawaiian Cruise, 20th Anniversary, May 2015

10. People ask us all the time why we're such big Alabama fans. After all, we live in LSU country, but Wayne's parents were from Alabama and moved to Louisiana before he was even born. So I guess you could say that it runs in the family. We're still very close with his Alabama family and some of my most memorable times with my man were attending football games together. The coldest game we ever went to was to see Mississippi State in TTown and I literally thought I was going to die from hypothermia! It even snowed! Oh, well. Bama won and fortunately for us, we'll always have our love to keep us warm!