Marriage has been harder than I thought it would be. All the fairy tales end with "happily ever after . . . " I think it would be more appropriate to put something like "mostly happily, but occasionally frustratingly, angrily, exhaustedly, and overwhelmedly ever after." That being said, I wouldn't have missed this for the world! Rob is my best friend and I am so glad I get to spend the rest of eternity with him!
We've had our moments - twelve years ago, Rob had just driven with me to pick up my parents at the airport for our wedding (this was the first time he had met them by the way). He came down with the flu that afternoon and stopped and bought Nyquil on our way to the hotel. He then crashed for the night in MY hotel room, so I ended up sleeping on a portable bed in my parents' room. We called and asked his parents to bring his stuff to the temple the next morning, but as he didn't have it all together, we ended up with no shirt for him. Fortunately the temple had them available for rent, but we had to return it before we left, so in all the photos after the ceremony, Rob has on a grey t-shirt (turned around backwards as it had a design on the front). He was sick as a dog that whole weekend, so I got to watch a lot of tv and spend a lot of time staring at the ocean from our wonderful beach-front balcony on the Oregon coast. He felt much better the morning we checked out, although we discovered the lights on the car had been left on and the battery was dead. Yes, some people have dream honeymoons, but ours makes a much better story I think :)
The story of how we met is my favorite though :) Rob had gotten home from his mission about six months earlier and was living at home with his parents in OR. I was at Ricks (now BYU-ID, I know, but it will always be Ricks to us), planning to work for one summer term than move down to Provo as I was transferring down to BYU so I could stay with one of my roommates, Rachel, who had graduated from Ricks that spring. Rob woke up one morning with a strong feeling that he should go to Ricks, so he packed up his stuff and left the next day. He had not applied (or been accepted obviously), had no job and no place to stay. He did know a family in the area that he was able to stay with for a day or two while he found an apartment. He happened to move in with several friends of mine. I, not knowing he had moved in that day, called that evening to invite his roommates over. Rob answered. I thought he was someone else - someone I knew - so we had a lovely conversation for several minutes until I figured out I was talking to a complete stranger. I was very embarrassed. His roommates had been planning on going to visit another girl (one of his roommates had a crush on her), but since Rob was the new guy, they let him pick. He said he wanted to meet me, so they headed over. From the moment he walked in the door, he didn't say two words to anyone. I tried to talk to him, but it didn't work very well. HE claims that he was tongue-tied because he says I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen :) I like that excuse :) Rob says he knew from the moment he saw me that I was his future wife, it just took him 48 hours to get up the guts to ask me. We finally ended up talking towards the end of Saturday evening. He came over after church the next day and finagled his way into going on a walk with me alone. Talking with him was like nothing I have ever experienced before. It sounds corny, I know, but we already knew each other. It was like suddenly I discovered the best friend that had been missing my whole life. He gave me my first kiss that night (I had just turned 19 three days earlier). He was waiting for me the next day when I got off work. That night he asked me to marry him. I couldn't imagine living without him, so thirteen weeks later we got married. Yes, it was fast, but Rob likes to quote one of the last lines from "When Harry Met Sally" - "when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
Rob - I love you! I'm so glad I have you to spend the rest of my life and eternity with!
1 comment:
These two posts are so sweet, LOVE IT! You two have such an amazing story and it's still going, it's great! Happy Anniversary to you! I'm also glad to know that I'm not the only one who had a sick hubby on the wedding day! Ben had the flu, high fever and all! He sat down for our receiving line that night...so I feel your pain! Nothing like shoveling ice chips on your wedding night! :) Happy anniversary to you both!!!
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