30 years - my gift to you, Tom

July 1, 1995

Yep, that was us then. . .here we are today - well, a couple of weeks ago in London :)

And this amazing family that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago. . .I mean, really?!? How did we get so lucky? How did this happen??

This picture says so much. . .we are still on the lake together - he first introduced me to boating at Caesar's Creek and later, Lake Cumberland in the early 1990's. In 1998 we were introduced to Dale Hollow Lake which is where you can still find us each summer. I love that boating is still in our life as well as so many other things. Last weekend we spent the entire weekend with Tom's parents at the lake:

We were missing Erin on Sunday when this picture was taken - she was there Saturday though! - and also includes sweet Rachel and Ellie. I mean, again, really?!? Two twenty-somethings in 1995 are on either end of this picture in 2025. We are so incredibly blessed.

This blog post is a "scrapbook" of sorts for Tom - a card nor gift was purchased this year. I didn't scan anything in - just whatever is digitized and uploaded to the cloud is what I'm going to share. At first I tried not including anyone but us but then realized this is about us and the life we have been fortunate enough to live together, and so.many.people are constants in this incredible life. I have hundreds of printed pictures (and probably thousands of digital prints on a hard drive) but those would be black holes that would be hard to escape from. . .so. . .here we go. Let's see where a laptop and the Cloud can take us.

Here we are in 1998 - just hours before welcoming our first-born into the world. Wow!! I got to raise these kiddos with TOM BELL!!! They are so lucky the Lord chose him to be their father.

A friend sent us this picture through FB a couple of years ago. We think it was from New Years Eve at some point? He is wearing a wedding ring so it's 1995? 1996?

This was from my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary - early '90's (pre-marriage).

I don't know when my sister graduated from medical school (1997?) - just an example of how many family events Tom has been around to celebrate with me.

Let's skip ahead. . .

December 2004 - you can get a little peek of Stephen in this one!

This was Christmas at Grandpa and Mammaw's house. Most years we had this celebration on the 23rd - not sure why it was the 26th this year.

June 2005 (20 years ago!)

Laura's ballet recital :). Dance didn't last long, although both the girls took a stab at it.

This was our little family after our 10th anniversary (with my dad) in 2005.

We still lived in Ohio at the time and passes to the Cincinnati Zoo were a Christmas gift to our family. We have always loved doing things together - scroll back up to the picture taken just last weekend!

Here we are with Erin - very few pictures taken without a kid in them. . .the theme of these decades :)

This was our favorite house - on Meadowview Drive in Centerville, OH. This was our second house - we bought our first house in February 1996 in Bellbrook (only a few miles away from this one). We moved the next year to Cookeville, TN. The following picture was taken at the lake or the beach with his family between putting our Ohio house on the market and before closing on our Cookeville house. Looks like he loved me as much then as he does now?

We enjoy traveling together IF we are going someplace with people AND there is "something to do" where we are going. This was a trip to Huntsville that we took in 2006 with Fred, Nancy, Robert, and Laura.

July 2006 - always at the lake, always with the kids. I'm glad this has defined our life and marriage so far :)

We had NO idea that this next picture would be the beginning of the next 15+ years of our life!!

This picture actually still hangs on our refrigerator in the garage. Coach, manager, father, supporter. . .this is the man I have been lucky enough to share my life with.

Maybe our first-ever selfie??? July 2007

Next year, same lake, different boat, different kid in the driver's seat with him. This one now confidently drives us around this same lake :)

Just noticed - this was Stephen's 4th birthday!!

This picture, taken in Mexico on a family trip with my mother, sister's family, brother and his wife, was the first personalized mouse pad I ever made :). It's probably still laying around somewhere - it has always been a favorite picture of "us".

Another "favorite" - Anna Maria Island in March 2009.

We were just back there together again this spring :)

2010 - halfway to now. . .still surrounded by kids in all the pics - December 23rd

October 23, 2011 - this is truly the only digitized picture I can find of the two of us from that year!

I did find this picture of the kids' first Bengal's game on Christmas Eve (I think) 2011 -

We celebrated Erin's birthday at Kiawah Island in 2012

And it was the year Amanda got married and I got to stand up with her.

She was the flower girl at OUR wedding!!

My birthday in 2013 and one of the years we were cheer parents to one and soccer parents to the other three.

2014 - Kissing the cook in the kitchen at Camp! We volunteered each Sunday to prepare the welcome meal that summer.

Camp also defined our family immeasurably for more than a decade.

2015 - another move. . .this time 90 miles east to Knoxville. When we moved to Cookeville in 2006 we didn't dream we would stay there 9 years and when we moved here 10 years ago. . .well. . .we just didn't put expectations out there :). Two of the four kids still live here and Tom's parents have also moved to our street so Knoxville it is for now - I can't imagine being anywhere else.

Lakeside - one of our favorite places to eat when we first moved here

One of (now) 10 anniversaries we have celebrated here

Many, many photo ops out here on our deck - this looks like it, too, may have been an anniversary? Or maybe Tom's birthday?

This was the FIRST college football game I ever attended!!

And Christmas parties we used to attend for his office.

We used to play tennis together at Fort Sanders - I believe this was New Years' Day one year

And when he couldn't play tennis anymore he still showed up to cheer me on!

And we've sat in the driveway together *almost* every year to pass out Halloween candy

As the kids got older, we started to get more pictures "just the two of us" and travel a bit more.

This was our trip to Washington DC for his birthday in 2019

I pulled a lot of beach pictures because, well, I LOVE the beach and he loves me so we go together sometimes :)

But more than the beach, the LAKE is the best. . .this was the old boat so more than 3 years ago. . .

and on our friend's houseboat at the marina a few years ago on a random weeknight:

And one of Tom's favorite places in Florida, Molly Goodheads

And the time we went to Florida in October and it was COLD:

But it was a trip together and we were visiting my brother :)
Last year Brad introduced us to the horse races:

And this year we went to see my aunt and uncle and they immediately took us to eat by the water :)

A wedding we got to attend together two years ago:

The very, very best thing we have ever done together (so far in 35+ years - besides our wedding and births of our children) is our EPIC trip to Greece together in 2023: