The forgotten anniversary

So, Ryan went to Roundtable last night and came home with a frosty and a card for me. How thoughtful! I read the card and said it was cute and then started eating my yummy frosty. He asked if I 'got' the card. I said I read it. I picked it up again and still didn't see anything special. He showed me the 'happy 15th anniversary' on the inside.

Now, not our wedding anniversary - just so you know. But the anniversary of our first date. He seems to remember it every year and I forget. But hey, that's kind of sweet. 15 years from our first date.

Our first date was a Heritage Halls Invitational (on campus single student housing) dance. He asked me a couple days before and I was really excited. I had been flirting for awhile, but was determined not to be the first one to ask him out. So, I waited and one of my roommates had to tell him he should ask me to the dance, but he did!

I wore this red dress - it wasn't very fancy. He made stroganoff at his apartment. We ate there and then headed over to the dance. We danced for awhile and then took a walk around campus and went home. It was a pretty nice evening. I remember standing over one of the bridges and looking up at the stars in the sky and the lights of Provo. We liked to walk up to the bell tower too and look at the view from there. It's kind of funny the perspective you have on life when looking down from up high. Man, the simplicity! I miss that.

We went home and parted our separate ways. I don't think there was even a hug. Funny. :)

This picture is of another dance a few months later...

I knew pretty early on in our relationship that Ryan was still trying to figure out what to do for a career. He told me his dad was in the air force and I KNEW I didn't want to live that kind of life - moving from one place to another and never really settling. The thought of moving to an unknown place every few years was pretty unnerving. I had gone to the same elementary school in South Jordan and moved in 8th grade to another house in Sandy where my parents still live. My little brothers have lived their whole life in the same house.

Anyway, I told Ryan I wouldn't ever marry anyone in the airforce to avoid that kind of life. When I told him, I could tell that that put him into some deep thought.

The funny thing is this... We got married in April 1995, moved to Maryland January 1999 (3 1/2 years later). We lived in Maryland for 2 years, moved in December of 2001. We lived at my parents house for about 15 months and moved to Logan in 2002. Ryan went to grad school there and we moved after 3 years to Tooele in May 2005. Now, we've been here for almost 4 years. Ryan is a finalist for a job in Rexburg. It occured to me that if we were to move again, that even though my great efforts to grow deep roots, we would once again be uprooting and starting over. Now, we knew when we bought this house that it would not be our forever house, but the longer we're here and the older the kids get, the harder it is to move.

Rachael asked me last week if she had any friends she had known since she was little. She said a couple of her friends had these best friends that they knew since they were babies and wished she had some friends like that. I wasn't sure what to say to that. Since then, I have thought that the perfect thing to say is that she has lots of friends in many different places. That is cool that she gets to know and live in so many different places.

Here are a few older pictures I dug up and scanned in for old times sake to look back at the different stages in our life.

The infamous Love statue. Ryan and I were engaged.

Newly married, I am pregnant with Brandon

Our BYU apartment

Kristin's blessing in Maryland

Ryan's graduation from USU

Two years ago here in Tooele

I wonder where and when our next adventure will be...