Today is August 8th. August 8, 1999, Jim and I were engaged. As we already had a date set (shhh, don’t tell anyone), I knew it was coming, but it was still the coolest ever. The day before my mom had let is slip, she asked me, “why does Jim want to talk to me?” I figured that he was going to ask her permission, but pretended like I didn’t know. No reason to ruin the surprise. I guess she said yes because the next day we were on our way to Aspen.

It was a Sunday and he picked me up early. I’ve lived about two hours away from Aspen since I was in 2nd grade, but this was my first (and only) time there. I remember construction on the road and massive fields of condos being built. As we neared the town, I pulled out my finger nail polish. I was pretty dern sure I’d have a ring to show off and I wanted my hands to look nice. Traffic slowed to a crawl and I had plenty of time to make my fingers perfect. There was some sort of music festival going on in the outskirts of town and traffic was jam packed.

When we finally arrived in town, we then had to search for parking. I remember being floored at the cost! Like two dollars for an HOUR! It was ridiculous. We shopped around town, taking our time to stop and listen to the street musicians. I remember a particularly cool area that was shaded by flower surrounded trees and paved with grass lined brick. There we listened to a teenage girl beautifully playing the violin.

As we meandered around town, we came to the gondola that took trips up the mountain. We decided to check out the top of the mountain and Jim paid the expensive fare (something like $6/person.) The view of Aspen was beautiful. And so was the view on top. We hiked around for a few minutes, noticing the fancy restaurant being built. As we rode back down the mountain, Jim was very antsy. He kept shifting his weight, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

About halfway down the mountain, he smoothly moved to one knee. It was perfect. And I stepped off the gondola engaged! The rest of the day is kind of hazy to me. I remember eating at the Hard Rock Cafe, and not being very impressed. I think after that we headed home, it was my step dads birthday and we were supposed to be back in time to have cake. I remember calling all our friends to tell them the news. It was a perfect day.

Six years.. it’s a long time. But I have to say, I love him even more today than I did six years ago.

It’s amazing that something like a movie can be so thought provoking. Some friends of ours, an older couple in their early 40’s, kept talking about the movie “The Notebook,” so last night we watched it. It’s a little slow and a little sappy, but the story was absolutely amazing.

It made me realize how very much I love my husband. Of course I’ve always loved him, but last night I remembered all the reasons WHY. I remembered how hard we fought to be together and how we never gave up on what we have.

Some friends of ours are going through a divorce right now and I’m finding it hard not to judge them. It’s hard to understand why marriages go bad. But I’m trying to see the other side of things. Jim and I have such open lines of communication, maybe they don’t? Maybe our marriage works because we’re both still trying to make it work. Maybe marriages fail when one or both people just give up? A working marriage is never something that just happens, it’s something that’s made to happen.

It just solidifies in my mind what I’ve always known in my heart, that I’m never going to let go of this.

This is the part of the movie that says it so well for me.

Well that’s what we do, we fight… You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I’m not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you’re back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.

So what?

So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day.

I know that this has all been pretty mushy, but I wanted to write it down while I had some clarity in my mind on the subject. I want to have this to look back on when Jim is being arrogant or I’m being a pain in the ass. *wink* It’s good to keep written down the things in life that matter most.

Last night Jim and I went on a DATE! Our friend Josh and his fiance Heather (who lives with us) watched the kids for us while we went to dinner and a movie. I remembered why we never go to Chilis. The food is good but the service is AWFUL. I don’t think I’ve been there once and ordered chips and had them bring them out to me with out me reminding them that I ordered chips! geeze!

We saw Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy. All I have to say is that I fell asleep. I want my $7.75 (each) back! The kid who sold us our $2.40 (small) box of gummy bears told us that the reason concessions are so expensive is that they don’t make any money on the ticket sales, only on the food. Isn’t that unbelievable?

Anyway, bad movie or not, it was nice to have some time alone.

We had such a nice date night on Saturday. We finally used our gift card to the Olive Garden that my aunt gave us at Christmas. (It was funny because one of our employees was picking up some extra hours at the Olive Garden and was our server.) After dinner we walked around the mall until our movie started. I’m so used to walking around the mall either with 1. a stroller or 2. holding two kids, who don’t want to hold hands, hands, that I didn’t realize how much FUN the mall can be with out children. (Even though our mall is LAME).

The movie we saw was Hitch. We both really liked it, I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. (And while we are talking about movies, let me just say that I can’t believe how EXPENSIVE movies are these days! $7.50/person. I could even justify paying $7.50/person if our theaters were newer than 40 years old. Seriously, these things are ghetto.)

Anyway, it’s just really nice to get out of the house ALONE. I’m glad that this will be a monthly ritual.

Yesterday was the 8 year anniversary of my first date with Jim. Awww, how sweet, huh? Too bad I was super mad at him. He knew it too, I could tell my the smug expression he had on his face when he walked in the door carrying a huge bouquet of white daisies and my favorite chocolate. (Lindor truffles OH. MY. GOD. SO. GOOD) What is it about chocolate and flowers that just makes us instantly forgive them? I’ll never figure it out, but it’s their secret weapon.

A couple of other things.
I got the prints from Apple in the mail yesterday, they’re SO nice! I’m very impressed. The only thing I don’t like is that they are glossy. I prefer to have my prints matte.

Also, Eden got up in the middle of the night last night and went potty all by herself!!!! In the dark!!!! By herself!!!! Usually she freaks out about being in the dark and has to come all the way around the bed to my side (she can’t ask Jim for some reason) to ask if she can go potty. It’s so nice to have a potty trained child.

Finally, I haven’t been able to get an email out to Gina about the scarf swap. Gina are you out there? Are your squares coming?? Let me know?

I’ve had a few questions about my life lately and I thought that it was an excellent idea to answer them here.

Jim and I started dating when I was 15 and he was 21. When I say the word dating, I use the term losely because we weren’t allowed to date. (You can imagine how well me daing a 21 year old went over with my parents.) We pretty much just saw each other any chance we got. It didn’t take long until we knew that we wanted to marry each other. I don’t think that it’s very often that a 15 year old falls in love with the person she wants to marry, but I have always been more mature for my age. And I think that I just knew what I wanted.

We had a rough go of it really. It was such a fight with my parents. We broke up once because we saw the inevatable coming, but we just couldn’t stay apart. We were forbidden to see each other, which we didn’t obey. Finally, the summer before my senior year, we were finally allowed to be together. I think they realized that Jim was there to stay. Later on that year I was forbidden to see him again. It only lasted a week. I can be rather dramatic and they gave in.

By the time I turned 18 we were just ready to get married. It was important to both of us that we were virgins when we married and, after almost three years of being together, it was getting to the point in our relationship that it was getting VERY hard to resist. Plus, we knew what we wanted and we had fought for it so hard, so why wait?

We got married October 16, 1999. 1 month and 1 day after my 18th birthday. I think it was with my parents blessing. I know that now my mom thinks the world of Jim. I’m not sure about my dad, I know that I’m not living the life he would have chosen for me. But having the kids has softened him up a bit to my life, they are so cute…

EDIT: I also wanted to say that while it has been good for me to marry so young, I wouldn’t necessarily advise it for everyone. There are hard things about starting a marriage when you still have a lot of growing up to do. Jim has been extremely patient with me and I know that if our marriage hadn’t been built on a firm foundation of knowing each other and knowing what we wanted in each other and, in my opinion God’s blessing, we wouldn’t have lasted this long. And while I say I knew what I wanted, I can’t say how lucky I am that I made the right choice. I couldn’t see then what experience has shown me now and… I’m just so lucky that I chose right.

I got pregnant with Eden about two years into our marriage, just a few months after we bought our house. It was one of those things where we weren’t trying but we weren’t prevenitng it either. Jim was in extreme shock when I first took the pregnancy test. He refused to believe me until it was confirmed by a doctor. He soon warmed up to the idea and out popped baby Eden Joy, just two weeks after Jim had been laid off from his job.

He still marvels at how well I handled it. We just had to hit the ground running with our business. It was do or die.

11 months after Eden was born, I got pregnant with Honor. This time our roles were reversed. I was in extreme shock and Jim was super excited. All I have to say is it only takes one time of not being vigillant with our birth control method…. ONE TIME!!! I was pretty miserable during my pregnancy with Honor. I was sick and puking for the majority of it and then it was like the hottest summer EVER. God smiled on me when he was born two weeks early.

There you have it, the last 8 years of my life in a nutshell.