Celebrating five years of marriage. We had fun at dinner, comfortable in our typical way of joking and being weirdos together. Exactly how we like it. But a drink or two after this photo, we got to talking about how challenging our marriage has been. Now this isn’t news to either of us, not at all, but I wanted to write and preserve that truth here, and keep it as a reminder to myself that photographs aren’t undisputed evidence of everything being all sunshine and rainbows, all the time. My photos, or anyone else’s. It’s an easy thing to forget. Things inevitably get hard, and our response as partners to those hard times decide whether we sink, or whether we swim.

We sipped drinks and floated around the pool all day. Shuffled along the dirt roads and lazily chased the sinking sun. Once the sunset painted the desert pink, it was time to pour another drink and fire up the grill. It was a lazy 3-day getaway in Yucca Valley.

Married three years, together almost nine. This is how we celebrated. Just like this desert climate, our time together has seen extreme highs and extreme lows, and time is the only thing that ever balances it all out.