Our Story - Part 1 - (and our 2nd Anniversary)

Happy 2 year anniversary to us! To the man that puts a smile on my face and makes my childhood dreams come true, I love you. 

Wedding Day {10-15-11}

To celebrate I thought I would write down our story and how we came to be. Since it's long, 9 years 6 months and 1 day of dating (plus about a year before), plus 2 years of marriage, I'm going to break it up into parts and post them occasionally. This is more for me and my terrible memory than anything else, so if you don't like love stories you may want to skip it. (Eventually, I will try to come back and post a few old school photos, but until then just use your imagination.)

Our Story Part 1

I was 14 and starting high school in about a month. I spent all my free time that summer of 2001 hanging out with my friends including my cousin (and best friend) Jacqueline. We are a year apart in age but both have August birthdays that put us in the same grade. I was one of the old ones and she was one of the young ones. 

Jacq's brother Andrew was 16 and played baseball which is where the story starts, a baseball field. 

I clearly remember sitting in the stands watching Andrew and his teammates out on the field. The non-baseball playing friends sat in the stands with us. They yelled out to one of the new kids that was getting ready to bat. "Wear the white helmet". Obviously the stark white helmet was more than a bit of joke, it was the dorkiest thing ever, which only made it funnier when he put it on. He turned around, laughing with the rest of us about how ridiculous it looked, but he had no problem making people laugh.  That was the first time I ever saw Seth and he made me smile. 

A few weeks later my parents were out of town and Jacqueline was going with her family to Andrew's baseball tournament in Hutchinson. Since I had nothing going on I went with her to hang out at the hotel and enjoy the rest of our summer. I remember pulling up to the Holiday Inn and the baseball team crowded around my aunt's 15 passenger van. Right there in the middle, staring at me, with his bright blue eyes was Seth, the boy in the white helmet. As the cliche says "our eyes locked" and we both smiled. At that point there was no way to know that I was looking into the eyes of my future husband but that's what it was. I couldn't tell you who the rest of the boys were that surrounded the van but I remember his face like it was yesterday. 

We spent those few days in Hutch getting to know each other between the ball games. I honestly don't remember the games at all, but I haven't forgotten how Seth and a few of the other guys (which ones I couldn't tell you) decided to run and jump fully clothed into the indoor swimming pool at the hotel. And how I forgot my contact solution so Jacq and I obviously knocked on Seth's door to see if he had any. He didn't but his mom did. How a bunch of us went for a drive in Seth's mom's SUV and he showed off his superior driving skills. 

And just like that the weekend was over and we came home, back to reality.