our first anniversary

Leap year is a funny thing. It makes today our first anniversary of our first date...February 29, 2008. Six months from today, is our fourth wedding anniversary. That's right, we were married six months to the day from our first date. With that kind of dating/engagement/marriage speed, you would think we fell in love at first site and couldn't bear to be away from each other for even a minute.

But that wasn't actually the case.

We actually met a year before we started dating - a mutual friend had a dozen or so single people over for dinner and we were both there, but we were also both dating other people. We met and had a nice chat. I remember thinking he seemed like a great guy but probably wouldn't be interested in a girl like me. Tony remembers thinking why can't I meet a girl like her (although I never quite got that because he JUST DID!).

Fast forward about a year and we both found ourselves at one of those painful, not-so-speedy, speed dating dinners. It was a deal where we sat boy/girl/boy/girl around a dinner table and the boys had to switch tables after every dinner course.

I had just broken up with an old boyfriend a few DAYS ago and wasn't exactly in the frame of mind to meet someone new. But imagine my surprise when I found Tony sitting next to me at the beginning. He said he saw me and made a bee-line for me. I didn't remember who he was. But after a short minute or so, I remembered his conversion story to the LDS Church (which would make for a fabulous blog posting!).

Anyway he asked for my phone number and we dated on and off (mostly because of my travel schedule). Truth be told, it was a bit of a rocky beginning. At the time, I was an anonymous contributor to a blog for single, Mormon women in the dating world. Someday if I'm brave enough, I'll fess up to that blog address. But for now, I found this posting after we had turned the corner and were really liking each other. Actually, if memory serves me right (which it rarely does these days), we were already engaged (it was so fast, it was a bit of a blur really). Anyway, here's that posting from July 23, 2008.

"that sweet spot"

A new favorite sport of mine is wake surfing. For those not familiar with boating or waterskiing, you basically surf behind a ski boat on the boat’s wake. If you have just the right combination…a big wake, the right board and a bit of magic, you can find that sweet spot on the wake, let go of the rope and literally surf for as long as the magic lasts. When all those elements come together, it’s amazing. It makes me smile and it’s a smile that stays on my face for a very long time. Tony and I spent a lovely week houseboating at Lake Powell in June. He learned to wake board, ski and surf all in one week and most of all, he gained an appreciation for my sport of choice.

Tony was with a houseboat full of my friends and family, he was in my element – not his, and he was learning brand new sports in front of me. And he did great.

He wasn’t even intimidated to be dating someone who was better at a sport than he is (which is behavior that I find somewhat troubling in men). We had a couple of very minor kinks to work out during the week which actually felt very healthy. We can see things differently, discuss them and still like each other.

There’s nothing like going on vacation and being around each other 24 hours a day for a week to really get to know each other. All in all, it was a great trip that I didn’t want to see end.So now we’re both back in town and we’ve found that sweet spot. We’ve found that groove where things fit together, there’s a bit of magic and we can just let go of the rope and ride the wave.


Happy anniversary to my dear husband. Four years later, we're still riding that wave!