7 Long Years

Crested Butte, CO during our first year of marriage.

John and I were married June 22, 2002. 7 years seems like a long time. I know that it is relatively not a long time, but a lot has happened in 7 years.

• we have lived in 5 different homes, 4 different cities, 2 different states.
• between us we have had 11 different jobs
• we have been to beaches, skiing, Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, just to name a few places
• We have added to our family with an adopted dog, a beautiful daughter, and an adorable son
• We have owned 5 different cars
• We have played countless games of scrabble, blokus, Guitar Hero, and most recently, paper toss
• John made it through grad school
• We have made our own menu orders for what's for dinner (#1- breakfast for dinner, #2- grilled chicken and green beans and potatoes, #3-grilled cheese sandwiches...) I will say that we are now able to fix more things than this, but for at least the first 2 years of marriage, we survived on those three meals! They are still favorites!
• We have lost (and found!) our crazy dog no less than 100 times. Seriously.
• John's car has been broken into more times then I care to remember
• We have both done really stupid things: ie... John-left his laptop on top of his car and drove on the interstate until it fell off. Jill- wait, I guess I haven't done any thing THAT stupid! ;-)
• We joke around a lot.
• He has put up with ME for 7 years!
• I have put up with HIM for 7 years! :-)
• He is still my very best friend!

On to my story...

I was pretty bummed that John was supposed to be out of town on our anniversary. We don't go on many date nights anyway, but an anniversary is a special occasion, right? Last weekend was just really busy and draining. We had a garage sale, a birthday party, a funeral, Father's Day, church... no time to celebrate our anniversary. So, while John was taking his Father's Day nap (4 hours!) I started scheming. I called my mom and asked if she would watch my kids Monday night. She is the best, so she said yes. Then I called up Adam, one of John's oldest friends. Adam lives in Northwest Arkansas, where John was to be working. I asked Adam to call John and ask him to go to dinner with him on Monday night at Bonefish. John bought it, hook, line and sinker. He got off the phone with Adam and started talking about how good it was going to be to see Adam, and how much he loved Bonefish and the shrimp he was going to order. I am just dying on the inside! I even said something about him spending our anniversary with Adam. So, I worked until about 3:00 on Monday, and then I headed up to NWA. I got to the restaurant early, hid my car, and just waited inside. When he came in the door, he was just shocked. He could not even speak for a few seconds, he was still trying to figure it out. I got him good! It was a great date!