I am grateful to the Lord for the joy and happiness of being a married man. I realize my lack of blogging has been quite evident as of late, but it is for good reason — spending time with my wife. Amy and I are both very blessed and continually give thanks to the Lord for our union. Now that life has begun to settle, we hope to begin a more normal routine of blogging, posting photos, and generally keeping record of the joyous life that God has given us together. Also, we will most likely be making some changes to my blog to allow for multi-postings from Amy and myself. Oh, and then there are the wedding photos, but we’ll get to that later. Below is “Mark’s top ten former-bachelor things that I have learned from being married for seventy one days, as helpful tips to other would-be grooms.” I hope you enjoy this somewhat facetious list :)

1. The blessings of studying the scriptures is greatly increased when you have someone to both teach / study with.

2. Fast-food meals are a thing of the past. Let the celebration begin!

3. Taking a quiet evening walk is now enjoyable and no longer something you do when you are bored.

4. Having hourly dialogues with your wife about how wonderful it is to be married never gets old.

5. Your busy life no longer lends itself to having dirty clothes scattered about the floor of your bedroom. (Not that this was ever an issue for me, of course.)

6. Introducing her as “This is my wife…” to people is something you eagerly look to do as often as possible.

7. Long road trips are no longer dull and tedious.

8. Getting off work no longer involves the dread of coming home to a big empty house, refrigerator, or perhaps a big/small ugly roommate whom is a guy.

9. You get to see your best friend everyday.

10. To summarize, life is good and marriage is normative.