First Day of Spring.

There are all different reasons to celebrate the special days that changed your life - the day someone was born, the day you met someone important, the day you married the love of your life, the day you gave birth, the day you got clean/sober. What's so amazing is usually we don't fully know how much or in what ways our lives are about to be impacted. There is no way to know how significant or incredible these 24 hours will be for days, weeks, and years to come. It starts out just like every other day.

Fourteen years ago I started dating the guy of my dreams.

I remember the day we met - or at least the day that got the ball rolling. He was wearing his yellow Old Navy sweatshirt and was riding his bike around the parking lot of Brookside Baptist. I was on my way to the soccer field for practice. I plucked up the courage and without thinking said "hey" to him and halfway expected him to say nothing. Instead he said "hey" right back to me.

I remember when I first fell in love with him - at the ripe age 13. We were on a ski trip with a bunch of kids from Brookside Baptist and we rode to and from Gatlinburg and Memphis together in the same van. We were with a bunch of our mutual friends and it was a safe space where we could just have fun and be ourselves. I got to know him a little better over the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in 2001 and on the way back home from the trip I was head over heels for this sweet, quiet, kind, funny, playful older guy.

I remember our first kiss. It was an accident! We were leaning in to hug each other and our heads turned the same way and our faces ended up meeting and it was so incredibly awkward considering how well we'd known each other and how much we liked each other at this point. I remember going back inside and detailing the kiss to my big sister and then dissecting it with her. And to this day I love that moment - how hilarious it is to relive and think about - and how grateful I am that our awkward first kiss happened.

I remember the day he asked me to be his girlfriend. And I remember the day I said yes. Tony had asked me to be his girlfriend before and instead of saying yes - I told him I needed more time. To be completely honest, the gravity of our relationship was too much for me at the time. It felt like the real deal from day one between us and that was intimidating. Not to mention the foundation of our relationship was sturdily built on our friendship. What if we dated and for some reason it didn't work out... I would lose my best friend. That was a risk that at the time I wasn't willing to take. My cousin came in town to visit and she told me what an idiot I was for not being his girlfriend - that he was such a nice guy and he was clearly crazy about me. I don't remember what exactly changed between us to get me to say yes, but I remember Breanne being so honest and real with me and that was a huge wake-up call to me. I remember telling him I was ready and to ask me again. He told me this was the last time asking... that he wouldn't do it again. So March 20, 2003 after asking three times and it being WAY overdue... we made it official.

I love that it coincided with the first day of Spring when it is all about growth, newness, transformation, and renewal. I'm glad Tony never gave up on me when it would have been much easier to do so. I cherish every year I've had with him and everything we've shared.

We've come a LONG way since the Brookside days... and he's still my best guy and truest friend and without a doubt the great love of my life. And the best is yet to come!

March 20th.

Today is the first day of Spring -- FINALLY.  Despite my allergies, I have a deep love for this season.  Spring is known for new life and gives me so much hope for the beauty to come.

But March 20th means much more to me... it's the day that Tony and I made it official and exclusive twelve years ago.  (Though, honestly, we might as well have made it official two years earlier if it wasn't for me being so stubborn!)  I can't say I know any different than the life I've lived, but it has been an amazing experience growing up next to the person you love.  We've seen each other through a little bit of everything... personal hardship, injuries, loss, failure.  And we've been there through new lives joining us, weddings, graduations, new jobs, big moves.  Not to mention our own wedding, pregnancies, child births, and newborn phases.  We've lived in countless houses, one apartment, and purchased our own home. 

And if you would have asked me twelve years ago whether I would be with Tony for the rest of my life, I would have told you yes.  But of course, don't we all believe that at the time?  Especially our first true love?  Our journey was anything but conventional.  We went through all kinds of bumps over those years and I can't count the number of times I've wished I could go back to what I now refer to as my "lost years" and do things differently... but the truth is, I can't.  And all the things in our past truly do make us the people we are today.  I do know that through the most difficult part of my life that he was the glue that held me together, the gravity that kept me planted, and he was the bright and shiny light when I needed to see.  He was my friend through everything and at a time when it seemed like there was no hope for a future with us, he was steadfast that we would find a way.

We knew one another as carefree kids on the soccer fields, awkward adolescents on the way to prom, almost-adults-but-not-quite struggling to find our way, and now as parents to our own beautiful children. 

I'm so thankful that Tony kept asking me to be his girlfriend until I was ready.  I'm so thankful to be married to someone who I love so much.  I'm so thankful for all the stepping stones that lead us to where we are.  I'm thankful for his surprise visits to the Quad Cities from Memphis when we lived 500+ miles apart.  And I'm thankful to have him next to me through life - then and now.

So while this anniversary gets trumped by our wedding anniversary these days, it's a breath of fresh air to think back on where we were so many years ago.  It fills me with so much awe & appreciation to remember the beautiful, unadulterated love we had for each other and where it all began.

Marriage Monday: A Little History

For the last few years in my blog's "about me" section I included the story of how Tony proposed to me.  When I first started blogging it was such a central part of my life - having just become engaged.  But now, as important as the experience is still to us, the farther we move away from that day in 2009, the less central it is in defining our family.  I figured I would write a blog about that special weekend so that the memories would be tucked away and safe inside this blog.

So let me just preface with a little about our dating history and our history as friends.

I can't remember when exactly Tony and I first met since we played soccer at the same church and had a lot of the same friends, but my first memory of Tony takes place in 2000.  Fall soccer was just beginning and when I was walking towards the fields with a friend, I remember seeing him riding his yellow bike.  It wasn't the first time I saw him, but it was the first time I got the courage to say something to him.  I just remember thinking he was heartbreakingly cute and that he was way out of my league with his good looks paired with the fact that he was just over two years older than me.  (Plus, I was dating one of his friends at the time.)  None of this mattered at the time and I waved to him and we exchanged hellos.  I'd say that since then we slowly got to the point where we spoke when we saw each other and eventually we became friends.  At that point, Tony and I did a lot of hanging out within our group of friends which mostly included my little sister (Ashley), his little brother (Sean), my best friend (Christine), his best friend/my boyfriend at the time (Peyton), and Peyton's older brother (Damen).

Here is one of my soccer teams, not sure which year this was, though.
Me (pink) & Christine (purple) are on the back row and Sean (green), Ashley (yellow), and Peyton (blue) are in the front.

Next up came my 13th birthday party that November.  I invited my closest friends at the time - we listened to music and danced in my garage, ate pizza (I think?) and had a scavenger hunt in my neighborhood.  If I didn't already have a crush on Tony, I realized the night of my birthday party how much I was genuinely interested in him and how different he was than any other boy I'd met.

This is just a portion of the original photo from my 13th birthday party.

After that was the ski trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee with Brookside Baptist (the church we played soccer at) over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in January 2001.  My big sister (Amanda) was going on the ski trip and so was Christine, Peyton, Damen, Tony, and a bunch of other guys and girls that either played soccer or basketball at Brookside.  The majority of people going were Amanda, Damen, and Tony's age and honestly, I felt very threatened of some of the older girls.  They were older, prettier, and funnier than me and more comfortable openly flirting with Tony!  I picked a van and when the older girls went to the other van and asked Tony if he was coming to their van, my heart sank.  I don't know what prompted Tony to decline their offer and come into the van I was in... whether it was me or Peyton or whatever reason... I am so thankful for the choice he made!  (I think when I asked him about this years later he said he thought the girls his age were too pushy!  So the tortoise really does win the race, huh?)  The whole weekend of the ski trip was such a blast - we mostly just goofed off and laughed at everything - but we really did get to know each other over the weekend.  We were either talking in the van on the way home or we were writing notes back and forth... either way, I remember Tony and I told each other then that we really liked each other.  And there was no looking back from that point between us!

So serious.

Why he chose my van... I have no idea! Look at that greasy hair!

The cutest boy I'd ever seen!

For whatever reason, I really didn't think I should have a boyfriend in middle school (or maybe was playing hard to get?) so I didn't accept Tony's request to be his girlfriend until my freshman year of high school.  At this point he was a senior!  We went to prom together and I had no idea what I was doing or getting myself into!  The first song we ever danced to was "Only God Knows Why" by Kid Rock - how unromantic!!!  But it really was so much fun... even if we only danced to a few slow songs because we were both still pretty shy.

Me and Tony with Damen and his date

May 2003

We were pretty off-and-on throughout my time in high school - but he was always such a staple in my life whether we were dating or just friends at the time.

Fast forward to January 2007, after a few years of not really being exclusive while we were long distance, we made the decision to become exclusive again!  I remember saying that if we broke up again then it was going to be for good - I didn't want to be that dysfunctional couple anymore and I was ready to be with him.  We lived together in Tennessee with some friends for a year and then moved into an apartment of our own in Illinois in 2008.  2009 came around and I remember feeling anxious to start the next chapter of our life.  I was always thinking about when or how he would propose and towards the end of the year I started to feel like he was never going to pop the question!

Us in our first place!

My birthday was coming up (November 2009) and he told me he was planning something special for my birthday but that it was a surprise.  After a few days/weeks he gave me a few hints: 1) That we could leave whenever we wanted to on the 13th and  2) Tony had bought something that was nonrefundable.  3) I needed to ask off work from November 13-16.  I had tons of ideas but the first plausable idea that I came up with was that Tony must have bought tickets to the Dallas Cowboys/Green Bay Packers game in Wisconsin for that weekend.  I was 100% certain that's what we were doing because we were both Cowboys fans, but somehow I was a bit disappointed at that.  Didn't that seem like something we would do for HIS birthday?

Little did I know what he was ACTUALLY planning.

The weekend before my birthday (November 6-9) I was part of a church retreat and was gone the entire weekend.  While I was away, Tony was out at the jewelry store picking out an engagement ring!

Tuesday, November 10th was my actual birthday and he promised to tell my the big secret today!  On our way to my birthday dinner at Red Robin, Tony gave me my birthday card and it was a SPANISH birthday card.  (He had been giving his friend's Spanish birthday cards that year and would use Google translator to write the messages in Spanish to be a pain!)  Immediately, I freaked out thinking he had written the inside message in a language that I did not speak!  Thank goodness, that part was in English!  Part of it read:

...I really hope you enjoy your present and I hope you are glad we are flying rather than driving LOL. It will be our first time flying together... I get window seat!! Ok, so we can do rock, paper, scissors for that later.  I can't believe it's been 9 years since our scavenger hunt at the Peppermill house. You were just becoming a teenager! It's been awesome the whole way babe...

Tony then told me we were going to Bradenton, Florida to visit my Grandmother, who I rarely get to see.  (I had just opened a card from my Gramma Myers and had just gotten done telling TOny how sad I was that we hadn't seen each other in a year and a half.  AND I HAD NO IDEA of the surprise!!!)  Now, since we had been together a long while, Tony knew I'd get some ideas in my head for this super special trip.  To throw me off the trail a bit, he told my cousin, Breanne, that he wouldn't be proposing on this trip because he couldn't afford the ring I deserved.  Tony also told Breanne that he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, but just wasn't financially ready to purchase a ring and was hoping I wouldn't get my hopes up.  He knew Breanne and I would talk about this and that I would put any idea of an engagement out of my head during out trip.  What a smart guy because that is exactly how it happened.  I was so touched at what he said to Breanne that the thought of him proposing to me in Florida had been wiped out of my expectations.

Tony & I spent 3 awesome days in Florida.  

On our 4th & final day (Monday, November 16) in paradise we went to the beach one last time.  We collected shells, got a bite to eat at the Sandbar alongside the beach, and started walking back to the car when I started to get really sad we were leaving.  

 

Getting to the beach on our last day

Searching for shells

Getting a quick snack at "The Sandbar" before leaving the beach

I had no idea that this would be our last picture as boyfriend and girlfriend

Tony suggested we sit by the water and enjoy the beach another minute before we leave.  (I thought that was SO sweet!)  That's when Tony said he had a poem to read me that he wrote for my birthday (he'd never written me a poem EVER) and began to read...

I love you more than Dallas vs. Green Bay, and a football game for your birthday.
I love you more than Madden and my PS3, and hopefully more than you love Daughtry.
I love you more than all my buddies at Honda and Electro Freeze; plus those yummy things you made with ham, pickles, and cream cheese.
I love you more than buffalo chicken pizza from Bad Boys; and hacky sacks, frisbees, and all those other toys.
I love you more than spaghetti and facebook, & while we're on the subject, that trip to St. Louis in Granny's car we took.
I love you more than Brookside Soccer and our Shelby Farm hike... I'm not sure if you remember, but also this cool yellow bike.
I love you more than the blue sky, the sandy beach, and the sea...
Allison Michelle Myers, will you marry me?

I really could not believe it!  I said OF COURSE, we hugged, I cried... and then I stood up and told Tony he had to get on his knee!!!  The entire trip had been so amazing with him beside me and to have such a grand finale like that was so special.  Sometimes I still have a hard time believing that actually happened!

That is quite a long history there!  If you made it this far after reading the entire thing - you are probably family, a close friend, or just really awesome... either way - I hope this wasn't too boring to you.  These are some of my favorite memories that I hope I will never forget!

So it makes me wonder, what is the story between you and your significant other?  How did you meet or how did he propose? 


I'd love to hear your story and possibly feature it on an upcoming Marriage Monday!  If you're interested in contributing, e-mail me your story.  Otherwise, if you write about it in your own blog, come back here and leave a comment so I can link it up here at the bottom.

Hope you had an great "marriage" Monday!  Hopefully next week I can ACTUALLY get Tony to write something, especially now that March Madness is over...