A
group of bloggers is hosting a series this month on Love & Marriage. Patrick and I will be celebrating our 7th anniversary next week, so I thought it'd be fun to join in when I can on some of these topics. This week is just about how "we" began. I've talked about it once or twice I think, so this might be old news to some of you. But if you haven't heard and you're curious, here we go!
Patrick's dad is actually from northeastern Oklahoma, which is where I
grew up. Though Patrick never lived there, they still had family in the
area and would come in to visit when they were kids. So technically, we
"knew" each other as kids because our families went to church together,
but since he was 1.) a boy, and 2.) almost 5 years older than me, we
weren't so much hanging out when we were 5 and 10 years old. :)
Fast forward to May 2005. Patrick was living in Chicago at the time and
just finishing medical school, and I was living in Tulsa working a job
in airline marketing where I traveled quite a bit. Well Patrick had been
in to visit his Aunt Treva, who went to church with my parents, and
shortly after that, his aunt and my mom decided we'd be a perfect match
and started scheming to set us up. Since I traveled often with my
job, I wasn't in when he was, so we ended up not being able to meet
right away...but then finally we did on June 5th, 2005. And as they say,
it was love at first sight. :)
Actually truth be told, he almost didn't ask me on a 2nd date because he thought I wasn't interested. Our first official date ended up being really late at night. He was coming in from out of town and didn't make it in til almost 10 pm. Well I figured we wouldn't eat at that point, so I'd already had dinner. Turns out he hadn't eaten yet so was starving, and wanted to eat anyway. I felt awkward sitting at the table just watching him eat, so I picked up a newspaper to look at. He claims I sat and read it the whole time, which is NOT true. I read little bits and pieces and would make conversation about those things. Yes, probably while looking at the paper...but I felt so weird just staring at him eating! Definitely an awkward situation, that we both interpreted and remember differently. But luckily he took a chance and asked me out again. :) However, he STILL talks about the newspaper reading to.this.day. It was somehow even brought up tonight. Every chance he gets basically.

When we started dating, he was in the process of moving to Waco to start
residency. I still lived in Tulsa, and about 2 weeks after we had been
dating, I was offered an excellent marketing job with North.west
Airlines in Minneapolis. I was torn because it was a great opportunity
career-wise, but at this point I already knew Patrick was the guy I
would marry...I just didn't know if he
knew it yet. :) So do I take the job that would move me even further
north from him, or stay put and see what happened with us? It was a hard
decision, but our connection was so instant that I knew I wouldn't
regret turning down the job to give us a chance.
And I am sooo very glad I did. Because only 3 months later, we were engaged. Our engagement came as a bit of a surprise to me...he really blew me away! Patrick was living in Waco (I was still living in Tulsa)
and things were pretty crazy. Since we had a long distance
relationship, we often sent each other care packages, and I always joked
that the FedEx man was quickly becoming my new favorite guy. A couple
days prior to our engagement, he had told me he sent me a package so to
be watching for the FedEx guy. Patrick was on his ER rotation, which
meant he was working some long shifts. We talked on the phone one Friday
morning, and he had told me he was getting ready to go in for
his shift, so that he'd just talk to me the next day. Fast forward to
that Friday night, where I was hanging out with my roommate eating Taco
Bueno and watching Friends reruns. It was probably around 10 pm,
and her phone rings and she takes off to her bedroom to take the call.
In hindsight, I should've known then that something was up. She never
came back out, and a few minutes later there's a knock at our door. I
contemplated not answering since I was in my pj's and probably had hot
sauce smeared all over me from the crunchy potato burrito I'd just
inhaled, but I decided to answer anyway. Imagine my surprise when I
found Patrick standing (actually kneeling) at the door when I opened
it!! He had flowers, and the nurses he worked with had made him an
official looking FedEx name badge that he was wearing. :) He said all
sorts of sweet things, and I just stood there in shock, still not
processing how he was here when he was supposed to be in Waco working.
When he was done talking he handed me a clipboard that had what looked
like a FedEx delivery confirmation on it, and said "Will you marry me?"
The whole thing was so cute and unexpected, and just blew me away. I
will never forget that night. :)
And just 6 months after that, we took
our trip down the aisle.
And now here we are almost 7 years and 2 kids later. It's crazy to think back on all of it and what we've come through. Marriage is work and anybody who thinks it isn't might be surprised. But the work is totally worth it. ;)