My Name is Dave: Given the task to review the last 10 years

Recently I was given the task of sending an update of the last 10 years of my life to an old friend. The 1st place I started was writing a small time line. The following is what I came up with.

2005 - got married, graduated, Rachel started her photography business

2006 - started working for Morsons engineering firm, aerospace industry, design,

2007 - purchased house, started working in Chester

2008 -

2009 - fitness craze started

2010 - got a new kitten, princess kitty witty

2011 - 3 peaks challenge weekend, called onto bishopric,

2012 -

2013 - brought bike from e-bay, now loving cycling again,

2014 - did a ton of sporting events including 8 hour endurance event and 30+ hour 100k hike, came out about having baby problems, found out we were having a baby, called back onto high council,

2015 - walked from temple to stake centre, had a baby, raising a baby

Rather worryingly there are huge gaps. Was my life really that empty? I can not think of anything significant to put into some years. I suppose some years will be like that, we won't always have life changing events. It doesn't mean we haven't had a good time. We've been on holidays, we've toured the UK, we've spent time with family and friends, we've made lots of memories.

The exercise prompted me to retrieve our archived annual photos and put them on our home server. This makes them more accessible and I have since reviewed many forgotten memories.

You may be interested to know what I ended up writing to my friends. Here is my update to them.

We had a think about what you would want to know. The 1st thing you would probably want to know is that we are both still married and active in the church. Since 2005 I have served as EQP in Stretford, served on the high council, as a member of the bishopric and I am now back on the high council. Rachel has also served at stake level in primary & young women's. She is currently teaching youth Sunday school.

Shortly after our wedding in July 2005 in September 2005 Rachel started her own business and started taking photos for a craft magazine. And by January 2006 I was working for an engineering firm in the Aerospace industry.

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary the other day. It was an anniversary unlike any other we had experienced before. Previously we have gone away for the weekend, gone on a grand day out or maybe even a restaurant. This year was quite different. This year, were exhausted, we got a take away and watched over our little boy.

After quite a few years of no success and a lot of emotional turmoil in 2014 Rachel finally made our situation public by announcing a fundraising activity we would do to support an infertility charity. We hiked round an entire county, the Isle of Wight, 106km in 30 hours. It was a relief to finally be open about something that most people kinda knew already, but didn't talk to us about. Shortly after the hike we went to the hospital to start IVF treatment. All we had to left to do was call the hospital at the right time of month to start with all the drugs and stuff that's involved. Well, that time of month never came.

Let's say, miraculously, after all the training and big hike, and after having no hope, we discovered that Rachel was finally pregnant.

Troy was born May 17th 2015. We don't need to go into detail about how dependant they are and how tired we have been feeling, I'm sure you are familiar with that. We are very delighted he is here. We love him to bits.

We've put together a time line of the last 10 years so you can see some of the significant events. Rather worryingly, some years are complete blanks to me. 1 because photos are not easily accessible of these times of our life, making it hard to review. 2 because we probably were just coasting through life.

I had been quite used to saying to people that I was just plodding along. Everything was constant. It has not been particularly easy, but it's not been massively hard either. It's just been constant. We have had good times and made memories together. We have had holidays, we have even made it to Salt Lake City in 2008. We bumped into the missionaries in China Town in NY NY in 2006/2007 and we have met missionaries in Bangor, North Wales.

Some of our more recent adventures include the great outdoors. Climbing Mt Snowdon numerous times and then extending our hiking repertoire around the country. I'm not sure when we decided to climb Mt Snowdon for the 1st time, maybe 2009, but since then we have embraced the outdoor environment and not just enjoyed climbing but other forms of fitness. Mainly running but also cycling. We have entered many running events over the last 3-4 years (all on a Saturday) and the best ones we have done have been the muddy runs. People think we are crazy, but trail running is so much more interesting than running on the road or on the treadmill.

The only other things worth a little mention is that we purchased a house in Urmston, Manchester, in 2007. Bad timing, but we brought it intending to stay, so the fact that it has depreciated in value isn't too much of a concern. We moved Rachel's cats, Lucky, from her Mums house into our place shortly after we moved in. She stayed with us for 3 years before she died. Then about 6 months after that (mid 2010), we got what we thought was a lovely little kitten. I named her Princess Kitty Witty. Turns out Princess is actually quite nasty. She tolerates us but does not like anybody else. Since Troy arrived she has kept her distance and might be suffering from a bit of depression as we turn our attention away from her. She'll be okay.

That's about it. It's incredible to think that a decade ago we just coming out of the student phase of our lives into responsible adulthood. We had many great times as YSA & have fond memories of these defining years.

In 2014 I grew a beard.

We both love Thai food.

We also included some photos. These are just a couple of 100's I could have chosen.