All this talk about parenting has made me realize once again that the most important relationship in my home is with my wife.  The best way I can love my daughters is to love their mother first.  I need to love Pam with words and with actions.  In putting her first, and building her up, I am actually loving my children more.  It will help them see that they are important, but not the center of our home.  It will reveal to them what love is, and it will model for them how to be loved in the days to come. 

On August 1st, Pam and I will be celebrating 16 years of marriage.  Every year is better than the one before.  I am so grateful that Pam continues to say “I do” to me.  I want to confess that I have not been the best the past few years in making things special for my wife.  I have deceived myself into thinking that Pam understands how crazy things are right now, and so I keep taking her granted.  Well this year, I wanted to do something more so I strategically planned to surprise her one week before our anniversary.  I decided to sneak her away for a quick trip to New York City for a day and half.  This week Hannah was at children’s camp, and a family allowed our other two to stay at their home for two nights built the perfect scenerio to get away!

Tuesday morning, we left the house at 5:00am to head north.  Everything seemed to be working perfectly.  We even made it smoothly around DC and then through Baltimore.  Until…..

Booooooooooom!!!!!!!!  My back tire blew out.  I navigated the car to the off-ramp exit.  It took me about 30 minutes to get the shreaded tire off so I could replace it with a spare (I guess I won’t get a job with Nascar anytime soon).  My hands were now dirty from the exchange, and my Ford Explorer smelled like burnt rubber, the trip continued.  Still rattled from the whole event, I took a wrong turn and ended up in Philadelphia.  Traffic then came to a stand still.  After two hours of detour, we ended up in our destination, NYC. 

The good news is that the rest of the trip was great!  I loved being with just Pam.  We really enjoyed the time, the food, and the experience together.  We both confessed that we need to spend more time developing our relationship.  It is scary how quickly time can pass, but also how easy it is to take each other for granted.

I am just blessed at this hour that the blow out was on my car instead of my marriage.  Praying for you, so please pray for me.