As the years continue on, as life begins to evolve and change, as moments in time seem like they pass us by all too quickly, I continually begin to find myself looking back at memories. I still remember vividly what that first day was like with you. I remember being so nervous that I was at a loss of words for the first hour, I remember laughing so hard that I cried over the most ridiculous jokes, I remember hours of banter, I remember the first time we kissed, I remember the first deep conversation we had, I remember thinking to myself… this is it. He’s the one.

If you know my husband, you know how deeply he loves the people in his life and without hesitation. Since the moment I met him, that was imminent and it hasn’t faltered even for one second. I didn’t stand a chance of not loving him and I’m so thankful that God blessed me with such an incredible man. What I didn’t know then, is how much I would grow in my time with him and how much he would teach me over the years.

Life works in funny ways, really. I had no idea how rapidly my entire world would shift, rotate, adjust and down-right change by following the path laid for me. I have always said I was a family person. What I mean by that is this, no matter who I was friends with their parents were always named “mom and dad” in my book.

So naturally with Ehren, this was no exception. His family is truly exceptional and no i’m not exaggerating when I say that. Ehren had told me when we first met about his family, he was 1 of 4 children, he grew up in the same home his mother lives in to this day, Carson City was where he called “home” and he had wanted to be in the Army from the ripe age of being born. Literally.

When you walk in his childhood home it’s cozy, filled with books, newspaper articles his dad had written over the years, generations of a growing family photos and really anything you could possibly imagine. I remember walking in and thinking “I have so much to learn about who this guy is.”

Here’s the thing; when you enter someone’s life, they’ve lived an entire life before you even arrived. This house was filled with memories and you could feel it just from walking in the door. He had memories of playing with his brothers, singing karaoke on a pool table, performing in school plays, working to get his Eagle Scout Award, getting ready to not only attend West Point but also what graduation was like and so much more. And while I had heard the stories, I didn’t really get it. I wasn’t there, I didn’t live in the moment, I didn’t know who he was prior to knowing the person he had presently become.

So for the first time in over a year, I got to put the pieces together. His dad was not only an incredible journalist but he had some incredible collections as well. One of them being a license plate collection. On the threshold of their living room and dining room, there is a picture of his father with all of these license plates that are now hung up on walls. On the stair hallway, there is a picture of each one of his siblings high school graduation photos, in the bedroom he grew up in there are photographs from his college graduation and the living room is filled with school pictures, weddings, anniversaries, family photos, etc. Without those timeless photographs, there would only be potentially lost memories. But instead, because his family chose to document these incredible moments in their history, generations will begin to understand what these incredible people experienced, what they looked like and who they were.

The Miller family lost their father and brother. And with those photographs, we are blessed to have something to remember them by every single day. Those simple photographs they took so many years ago, are now an heirloom piece.