A decade

It's been ten years since the hubs and I had our first date back as two college freshmen in West Virginia. I can't fully comprehend that amount of time because that's more than a third of my entire life and it was a very formative ten years. Eighteen years young and I met my better half. Who does that? I never had to go on a blind date, meet someone online, or try to score a guy's number at a bar. Ten years ago was before Facebook, prior to both of us having cell phones, and neither of us had a digital camera. We didn't exchange phone numbers at first, rather AIM screen names. It was like a foreign time out of an alternative universe.

Sure, there are moments where I think, "holy crap! you've only really dated one person in your entire life. How do you know you're not missing something?"

Honestly, I'll never know for sure, but I do know I don't want to go looking to find out.

We've been through so much in the past ten years and I wouldn't do it any differently. Okay, I'd make a few minor modifications here and there, but overall all the big moments would stay the exact same. Today I'm going to reflect on the good moments, but goodness gracious there are too many to list. Trust me, I've got the laugh lines to prove it!

We bonded with each other's siblings.

We survived our freshmen year of college! Holy crap was that a difficult year. The school year started off with September 11th and in the wake of that tragedy the whole world changed.

We took college road trips, even though the hubs sucks at staying awake in a car. Try driving from Florida to West Virginia with a dude who can snore for 12 straight hours. Not cool unless you have Disney soundtracks to sing along to!

He put up with my crazy sorority sisters. I'd call him at 4am sometimes and say, "can you pick me up?" In my defense his baseball teammates weren't any better. But then again I had soccer teammates on top of crazy sorority sisters. That man put up with so much drama in college I'm surprise he doesn't have more gray hair.

He asked me to do the honor of marrying him. I thought I was getting a puppy and instead I got a future husband.

We graduated from college and decided that we were going to live together - again. We had previously lived together at my parents house for a summer in which we had two twin beds in my bedroom and the door had to be opened at all times. Showing that he was a proper gentleman the hubs got a job at a local grocery store, took a few college credits, mowed my parents lawn, and more importantly went fishing with my grandpa almost every day. When the hubs asked my dad for permission to marry me my dad couldn't say anything but yes.

We had our very first apartment in Newark, DE where we made chocolate chip muffins and pancakes for our very first meal. That's our first grocery receipt on the fridge!

We brought Jewels into our lives.

And a few months later Jax came crashing in.

Back then the dogs used to fit in one dog bed! Jewels was even bigger than Jax for what seemed like the longest three weeks in the history of time.

We celebrated our first Christmas together with the pups. Jewels was six months old and Jax was only 10 weeks old! He peed on the 14ft Christmas tree my parents had in their house and we haven't had a live tree since! It was at that point that we decided to never spend another Christmas apart again and haven't since 2004.

We supported each other during a few really stupid ideas. Why the hell did I think my hair looked good that curly?

Unfortunately, there has been more than one occurrence of the dreaded beard. When we first started dating the hubs had hair long enough for a small ponytail! I didn't realize it for days because he always had a baseball cap. Thank goodness the freshmen baseball boys had their hair buzzed during spring break.

How we're alive somedays truly does surprise me. ATVs and sleds do not make good companions. Double dares never end well. Throwing rocks at wild animals, even in self-defense, is so stupid I still can't believe it was thought to be a viable option. If you can't drive a stick shift say so, don't think you can learn for the first time on a massive hill! Two hand touch really means tackle football and calling it anything different is just misleading.

I graduated from college all over again! And then promptly chomped 14 inches off my hair! Those pictures still scare me. Never going that short again!

We went on vacations ranging from long weekends in Michigan, a destination wedding in Florida, to an amazing honeymoon in Brazil, and couples vacations with our best friends. We're planning a trip this summer for our five-year wedding anniversary and I can't wait!

We moved from Buckhannon, WV to Newark, DE to Towson, MD to Halethorpe, MD and now call home a nice little suburb outside of Baltimore. We bought a freaking house!

It's taken us a small village to get here. We've got the friends who first introduced us and our best friends who have seen us through from the beginning and are still around today. We've got family members that have lent us their hearts, in addition to their furniture. We've made new friends over the years and they don't make fun of us for dating forever. We're the Lily and Marshall of our group of friends and we're okay with it.

The first official picture of the hubs and me. Yes, we're at a Hells Angels themed party.

All because ten years and a week ago a boy finally said more than two words to me at a party. We had hung out in group settings before, but the guy was so shy and quiet I didn't even know his last name. Finally, he asked me out. Ten years ago on February 8th we had our first date.

I haven't been a first date since and I hope to never go on one again.