An Anniversary and a Butterfly

First thing this morning, as if in celebration of our four year anniversary, we found a newly hatched female Black Swallowtail butterfly, ready to go out into the world of flowers and flight.

If you had told me four years ago today that I would be in south Texas, kissing the cheeks of the sweet grandmotherly greeters at church, understanding more and more meaning in each sermon in Spanish, growing okras and watermelons and learning to eat prickly pears, I don't know if I would have believed you.

Life takes us unexpected places, doesn't it?

Yet through all the unexpected life places I've been in the last four years (because from starting graduate school to learning a new language, ALL the places I've been since that May 31 in 2010 have been unexpected), I'm more glad than ever to share my life with a man who has the sweetest heart and the truest unfailing integrity.