8 Years!

Today is our 8th wedding anniversary. It is amazing to me since I don't feel that I can possibly be old enough to have been married for 8 years. Jeremy says I'm in denial, and I suppose having a 7 year old daughter should help to convince me, but . . .we're still in the "College" class :)

Anyway, here's the Cliff's notes version of our story with a couple Jeremy's corrections telling the way it really happened in blue.

Jeremy had been dating a girl from back in California for the first 3 years of college, and I knew him mostly as the guy who led the prayer meeting every Monday night in the SAC (Student Activity Center). When school resumed his senior year, my junior year, I had a foot in mouth comment when I asked him if he had proposed yet, and he replied that they had broken up. Whoops! Fortunately we didn't really hang with the same people, so I don't think he held it against me. Then one night while hanging out with a bunch of students, he leaned over and untied my shoe. (It was in a classroom before a class, and her shoe was already untied) Now, this was a challenge to me since I had made it a type of game throughout college to always 'coyly' find some guy willing to tie it for me. This unfortunately did not work with him, and after he refused to retie the offending loose lace, I had someone else tie it and left the building in a stubborn huff. From that point I didn't really like him (Yes, she did)- I thought he was a bit of a jerk (That part is probably true). But, going to a school of only 230ish students, we ran into each other a lot, especially when one of my roommates developed a crush on him. I was repeatedly subjected to social events where our paths intersected in an effort to be "supportive" to my roommate's most recent affections. Thankfully, after Christmas, she told me her interests had changed, and we no longer had to hang out with his circle. But around February, Jeremy and I found that we had very similar schedules and that when we had free time, no one else was usually available, so after he apologized (No, I didn't!) for being such a big jerk about the whole shoe untying episode we began to hang out. By the end of April we had become good friends, so when he totaled his (brand new) Civic and needed a ride back to California for a friend's wedding and my family happened to be going out that weekend for a family vacation (which, coincidentally, was the last family vacation we have taken), I offered him a ride. So he and I took one car, I dropped him off at his parents', and then I headed up to Six Flags to meet up with my family. Two days later I picked him up from the wedding, and we headed back to school. I found out later that his mom and sisters had told him he should date me after they met me that weekend. Anyway, there were only a few weeks left before he graduated, and I knew he was headed back to Cali, so we still hung out but didn't really have any intention of being more than friends. He had been home for about a week after graduation when I got a call about him thinking about moving back to Arizona to find a job (and because he missed me). I thought it was a great idea; however, I was headed to Holland for 6 months, and I was leaving in a week. He returned to AZ, where I helped him pick out an apartment and we determined that yes we were dating and were on the road to getting married, and then I left. So, other than 1 week in August where I came home to renew my visa and pick up a laptop (which was going to be taxed to death to ship to me), we dated/courted long distance through mail, email, and phone calls. In fact, I guess you could say we got engaged over the phone since on October 23 we set a wedding date. In November, I flew home to surprise him for his birthday, and then we went to California together for Thanksgiving. On November 23rd he drove me to the beach, and while we sat on the cool sand, surrounded by the morning fog, he reached over and untied my shoe. "You better tie that I said, and as he did (since he had learned a little since that first episode- but not much), he slid my engagement ring on the lace as he tied it. We had a quick engagement and then a beautiful wedding on February 23, 2001.

And that was 8 years ago!


I heard once that life is not really about the decisions that you make, but about constantly managing those decisions. While I can't say that it has always been easy, it has been the most worthwhile decision I have to manage!

Love you Jer, thanks for picking me and putting up with me! (I love you too, and ditto!)

(I would have posted a wedding picture, but again, we were married in the days of film and don't have any scans with us.)