Eight years ago, somewhere between Texas and Tennessee, my husband asked if the Field of Dreams movie site was close enough to our road trip to make a pit stop. We loved the movie and it’s sweet, simple magic. It wasn’t, but I rolled my eyes and promised that if it ever was (i didn’t expect it to) we would absolutely go!

Flash forward to me getting a phone call from him at work, “So, either I go to Afghanistan for a fourth time or we move to Alaska. Your call?” I know he will eventually deploy yet again, but not today! Alaska it is!!! We adore road trips and adventure of all kinds! What greater adventure could we embark on than DRIVING from Texas to Alaska?! Guess what stop we could make on this cross two countries trip?!

The life we’ve lived in between those eight years has been full of the most heartbreaking and wonderful experiences of my life. We have grown from two dreamer kids getting married in the the middle of nowhere Tennessee to older, slightly wiser dreamers who never turn a good adventure down! Dreamers who have known the price of war, infertility, and more ugly than we should have. But, we have also seen our dreams come true; a husband safely home from too many times to war, a daughter when we were told she wouldn’t make it, and a bond together that makes this life worth living!

We started our journey by visiting and saying goodbye to our families, a feat that never gets easier. But nothing compares to the look on this man’s face when we finally made it to Iowa. He was that young, crazy kid I fell in love with so long ago who wanted so much for reasons I never truly understood to visit a corn field in Iowa. I melted when I realized that life had tried so hard to break us and all the hell we’ve been through hasn’t even began to change his soul. I was a goofy mess, standing there in the middle of baseball field watching my whole world roll around in the grass. “a dream come true” he said, being here and playing baseball with his best girl ❤

That’s what this life is, all of it, a dream come true. A simple magic that we embrace in both the heartbreak and happiness.