In my About Me, I give you a quick summary of my relationship with my husband, Dan. I thought I’d fill you in a bit more because he is a MAJOR part of my life (as he should be). Not only is he the love of my life, but he is a fantastic caretaker. Anyway, on to the good stuff 😉

I moved to Colorado in August 2008 for college. In September 2008, the engineering school I was attending had a club day, and I decided I wanted to attend the first robotics club meeting because I love robots. As I was sitting in the room, I looked around and noticed a very handsome guy sitting on the opposite side from me. Something in me said “he’s going to change your life” … I didn’t realize I’d marry him! I just thought he’d help me realize something about myself and end up leaving eventually. Obviously, I’m very glad that DIDN’T happen (in case you haven’t caught on, the handsome guy was Dan). I made other friends in the club, and one of them happened to be one of Dan’s roommates. Unfortunately, the roommate thought I’d been using him to get to Dan, but that was never the case. I really cared about the roommate, but there were some things I wasn’t okay with and I couldn’t deny the strong pull towards Dan. After some drama with the roommate (and the robotics club, but that was just dumb), Dan and I started dating in December 2008. The roommate had started dating the month before, to the woman he ended up marrying actually.

So, Dan and I started dating December 2008. Our first official date was going to see the movie “Four Christmases” and then driving around after the movie to find Christmas lights around town in the snow (first white Christmas season I’d ever had). It was cute, and fun. Fast forward to March 2009 and I collapsed in my dorm room because an ovarian cyst ruptured. When I was in the ER, they found a second cyst. Anyway, long story short, I ended up being in and out of the ER multiple times for pain management issues because the cyst got really large and we were suspecting gall bladder issues so they didn’t want to do surgery until I’d had tests for that. I had surgery to remove the cyst June 2009. It was outpatient, and only took about an hour. The next day, Dan had to leave to Wyoming to start his summer job. But he was absolutely fantastic from March until June, he always took me to the ER and stayed the entire time I was there, regardless of time of day/night and what he had to do afterwards. And when he was gone for the summer, he talked to me every single night before bed.

Fast forward to November 2011. We’d been thru highs and lows, and had some pretty fantastic dates. For a few months I’d been talking to him about marriage (I started the talking, he did participate), and we’d been discussing our emotional obstacles to marriage (worries about divorces in our lives and marital problems) and how we felt about marriage in general and for ourselves. We both were definite that divorce would never be an option for either of us (you know, with a few exceptions like serial cheating or murder) and that we’d both always strive to have the best marriage we could have. Back in April 2011, we’d purchased tickets to see The Lion King (play) in November… I’d wanted to see it for an extremely long time but never had the chance. About a week before the play, Dan said he wanted to make it a big elaborate date since it had been a while since we’d had time for one. I said okay, as long as he planned the entire thing. During the date, there were several times where I was just like “aw, this would be a perfect time to propose” and then having to remind myself he hadn’t had any time at all to even think about a ring since he’d been working on his senior class projects (he was graduating that December). The play was FANTASTIC, and I highly recommend it!!!! Then he asked if I wanted to go on a drive, which was not unusual because one of our most common date things was just driving around talking and seeing new things. I told him that as long as he wasn’t going to be too tired for class the next day, then I was okay with it. We parked at a favorite lookout of ours, and Dan said “it’s a bummer that there aren’t more stars out.” Well, I’m goofy, so I started pointing them all out (there were clouds, but they were kind of spotty) and ended up turned all the way around in my seat. Then Dan says “there are a ton right here” so I turned around, expecting him to be pointing at stars… but there was suddenly a shiny ring in my face!!!!! I started screaming and crying and laughing all at the same time as he asked the question. But when I tried to take the ring he wouldn’t let go, and then I realized I hadn’t actually answered him, so I said yes, and he STILL wouldn’t give it to me because he was afraid I was going to drop it somewhere in the car 😛 He did eventually let me put it on.

December 2011: Dan graduated with two Bachelor’s degrees in engineering (mechanical and electrical), and then we moved across town so we could get settled in our apartment that was right by his new job. When I say and then, it was extremely close together. We signed the lease of on our new apartment on the 15^th, he graduated on the 16^th, and then we moved on the 17^th… crazy busy week!

Trying to pick a wedding date is weird… but we eventually settled on June 14, 2013. Our dating anniversary was December 15, so we were doing the 4 ½ year anniversary for our wedding… but it was a Saturday so we went with the less expensive Friday option. 😛 Anyway, we planned our wedding, then it was here, and then it was gone. But it was FANTASTIC! I have never been happier in my life and I was so excited to be married to the guy who had shown he would always be there for me no matter what and had left a permanent smile on my heart. If there is interest (tell me in the comments) I can do a post just about the wedding (I do still love talking about it hehe). So we were married and on cloud 9!

In October 2013, we got a notice that our apartment’s rent was increasing by $200 a month… woh woh woh WOH… WHAT?! Yeah, pissed. We were visiting his mom in Wyoming. She is a landlord, so I decided to ask how much she raises rent usually, and then mentioned my upset at the increase. She was kind of horrified too and mentioned that she had been planning on gifting her children some money towards their first house purchases when they got around to that. Interesting. So we started looking at both apartments and houses (since we only had two months and no money saved up for a down payment), but came to the conclusion that buying a house was a much better option. His mom was fantastic and gave us a healthy portion of the down payment, which really helped us get all the other things covered (inspection, closing, etc). We moved into our townhouse December 14^th, slept for about two hours, then headed up to Wyoming to attend a wedding… so we were a bit tired 😛

June 2014 was our first wedding anniversary! So fun!!! Dan had been doing a fundraiser, which had given him the opportunity to purchase a $100 meal for two (including wine) at The Melting Pot. If you have the money and one near you, I HIGHLY recommend it! It’s fantastic! When Dan made the reservation, he said it was our anniversary and there were rose petals and candles on the table (complete surprise to me!), and the candles were in a beautiful heart shaped dish that we were allowed to keep. So much fun! And I can’t wait until we have an excuse to go back for dinner (maybe when I graduate).

Our second anniversary was just last month. We went to see Wicked (also completely amazing, by the way). We had dinner before the show at The Old Spaghetti Factory, which is always good, and not very expensive. This was my third time seeing Wicked and Dan’s second. The cast this time had absolutely fantastic chemistry, and there were some scenes I didn’t remember, which were a lot of fun.

Throughout the years we’ve had our share of fights, but they almost always, somehow, end with us laughing and smiling. We work through everything, including all of my health stuff. He’s fantastic, and I really couldn’t remember my life without him. Sure, he does things that drive me completely bonkers, and I’m sure I do the same to him! But he’s always the first person I think about when I wake up and the last person I think about before I go to sleep. I know that I will be with him forever, and that thought alone is enough to make me smile! Obviously, I consider us to be very happily married 🙂