3 Years ago today

"You're My Best Friend"

Queen

(our recessional song)

Ooo. you make me live

whatever this world can give to me

It's you, you're all I see

Ooo, you make me live now honey

Ooo, you make me live

                                                         

You're the best friend

that I ever had

I've been with you such a long time

You're my sunshine

And I want you to know

That my feelings are true

I really love you

You're my best friend

Ooo, you make me live

I've been wandering round

But I still come back to you

In rain or shine

You've stood by me girl

I'm happy, happy at home

You're my best friend.

You're the first one

When things turn out bad

You know I'll never be lonely

You're my only one

And I love

The things that you do

You're my best friend

Ooo, you make me live.

I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
You, you're my best friend.

Happy anniversary!

P.S. Last year a I did a whole wedding series. If you want to see more of our day you can check it out:
Proposal Story
Getting Ready
The Ceremony
The Reception
Stuff I wish I had known

My Last First Date

I love my husband. A lot. Maybe I am feeling nostalgic or whatever but I was thinking back to when he and I first met. I thought I would share the story of our first date with all of you.

Five years ago (on leap day) I went on my last first date. I have already shared that the Mister and I met on MySpace. After a month of emailing and messaging back and forth, he asked if we should get together for dessert at a local bakery. I had oral surgery the week prior to the date, but I thought that I could handle cake and tea.

The day of our date came, and he messaged me saying that we might as well meet for dinner since it was going to be dinner time. I agreed, although I was pretty worried about my mouth. I was still eating a mostly soft food/soup diet at the time. He suggested we meet at Thompson House, a local brewery/restaurant that was literally across the street from my apartment building. I gave him my phone number (we hadn't talked on the phone yet) and told him to call me when he was at the stop light. Once I got the call, I walked over.

I met him inside. Immediately I noticed his outfit: jeans, a Rogue brewery baseball hat and a brown shirt with two guns on it. Clearly he had taken the same amount of time as I had to pick out my outfit. :) They sat us upstairs and we both ordered a drink. After some small talk, we started looking at the menu. I was scanning for anything "soft." I settled on the halibut and chips. As we were waiting for our food, two of my girlfriends from work showed up. They saw me and came over and started talking. One of them realized we were on a first date, and got them out of there.

We kept chit chatting, when two more of my guy friends walked up the stairs. (The crazy part, one of them was living out of state, and I had no clue he was in town.) They had heard I was there, and they came to crash it. My poor date just looked so confused, as if I had sent all these people to the restaurant to spy on him. Eventually all of my "guests" left and our food came. Besides for the random interruptions  we had no awkward silences.

When he got up to go to the bathroom, a table of guys near us leaned over and asked if we were on a first date. I laughed, and said yes. The told me things were going very well. When I asked them how they knew it was a first date, they said something about how I hooked my purse to my foot under the table.

At the end of the date, we walked outside and fumbled our goodbyes. He claims I ran away and across the street. I say I just walked home. Later that week we ended up going out for cake and tea and stayed 3 hours in the bakery talking. :) The rest, is history.

What was your best first date?

Are you speaking my language??

The other day Ady posted about the 5 Love Languages. When I was in grad school I took a class called Healthy Relationships (trust me, a Masters degree in health education isn't as impressive as it sounds) and I did a project on the 5 Love Languages. It has been a few years since that class, and I was happy to  look at it again, and take a quiz on my love language (again). When you go to determine your love language they first questions they ask are if you are married or single and your role (husband/wife). At the end of 30 questions, you find out what your Love Languge is.

I was really not surprised at my results at all. Neither was the Mister. He then quoted me by saying "say nice things to me." (yes, I say that sometimes...) And my heart swoons a little when he sends me emails in the middle of the day. (it has been a long time since he has done that one...) I made The Mister take it too. Here are his results.

Do you notice something? We are exact opposites! Seeing that was pretty eye opening to me. He usually takes my dishes into the kitchen after dinner. According to this, it is his way of showing me he loves me through his love language: acts of service. What gets tricky is that my love language is last on his list and vice versa. SO... when we are trying to show our feelings the way we would like it, the other person isn't getting the whole picture.

The quiz took about 15 minutes or so to do, and I learned a bunch through it. The Mister grumbled about taking it, but I am glad he did. I am also glad we talked about our answers.

Here is the link to find out your love language!

What's your love language? Do you and your person have different love languages??

I wasn't paid for this post or anything. I just thought it was interesting!

Before I Met My Husband

In Runaway Bride, Ike (Richard Gere) calls out Maggie (Julia Roberts) for not really knowing how she likes her eggs. She just eats them how her current man friend eats them. While that is a bit extreme, I think it is pretty normal to be interested in/like things that you might not have before you were together.

Before I met my husband..
I didn't see a difference in hot sauce.

I also left out the 3 different salsas we have in the fridge...

I pulled all of those out of our cupboards. I know for sure there is some Tabasco somewhere in the house. The Mister uses a different hot sauce depending on what he is eating. Apparently this is a trait shared by his brothers too. At Christmas I was talking to his brother's wife about how the guys put hot sauce on everything. His youngest brother goes through the Costco sized bottles of Tapatio like they are going out of style. (I should have taken a picture of his plate on Christmas Eve. He covered his Turkey in the hot sauce.)

...I never would have watched Buffy.
   

Source

I have now seen every episode. Plus every episode of the spinoff, Angel. And I liked it. The Mister owned both series on DVD when we met. I kind of made fun of him (in my head of course) for that. He had me watch it after I finished reading the Twilight books. Since then I have expanded my Vampire repertoire to include The Southern Vampire Mysteries (True Blood) and currently the Betsy Taylor series of books.

Speaking of TV shows, I also would have never enjoyed these before I met my husband

We actually first saw an episode of The Big Bang Theory when we were on a flight from Oregon to Florida, and we hated it. I don't know what made us try it out again, but now we watch it all the time (and the reruns really are on all the time.) I also would have never watched Justified. The previews of it make it seem too much like a Western, and that is a genre I am not a fan of. But The Mister made me watch it, and now I became a fan.

...I would not have the knowledge of outdoor clothing that I have.

Source

Or the closet full of outdoor clothing that I have. My husband has made it his job to keep me warm. Probably my biggest complaint is that I am cold. Like all the time. Every gift giving season, he has gotten me some sort of clothing to keep me warm. This year was a North Face base layer and fleece slippers. Last year he researched the "warmest socks in the world" and bought me these:

Source

...I would have NEVER moved back to the town I live now.

Source
P.S. That's my vet...

I wouldn't have moved back here if we hadn't needed to buy a house in between our two jobs. I already wrote about why I love living here.

Are there things that you do now that you wouldn't have before you met your special someone?

Meet The Mister!

I have been reading Becky's Show and Tell Posts for a few weeks now, but I have never joined in. This week's questions is about a subject that I love to talk about...

All About My Other Half

1. Tell us about how and when you met your love and what attracted you most to him.
I have told everyone how the Mister and I met before, but I like to share. :) The Mister and I met on Myspace. It was back when Myspace was still cool and before Facebook took over the world. With Myspace you could browse profiles and you could put things in like an age range, sex, education level etc. I had browsed around a few times, but was always to chicken to send a message to anyone. The Mister had also been browsing and he said he came across my profile. (I had seen his too, but he didn't know because of my chickenness.) Fortunately, he was not as chicken as I was. This is the first email he ever sent me:

After that we emailed back and forth for about a month before we met for our first date. In our emails we were able to learn a lot about each other, as well as joke around. (I haven't gotten rid of my Myspace account because I like to go back and read them every once in a while.) On our first date he asked so many questions (and not in a creeper way) and he really listened. That is probably what really attracted me to him first. 

2. Here are some of our first pictures together. They are all self portraits taken in the spring and summer of 2008.

3. Tell us some of your favorite memories that you two had together.
We've been lucky enough to take some amazing vacations together

San Diego, Disneyland, Vegas, Disneyworld

But my favorite vacation was our week long trip to the Oregon coast when we got engaged.

4. Tell us your favorite qualities about this man, what makes him "the one."

He listens (to what I need)

He makes me laugh (when I need it)

He is practical (when I am not)

He supports me (through all my big and small ideas)

5. Tell us what your "date nights" typically look like.

Our typical dates are dinner, movies... regular stuff. Our best dates are day time stuff: hiking, beach trips, local festivals. 

Come back later this week! I got him to agree to an interview for this little blog!

Wedding Week: The Weddings I Didn't Have

 This post is all about the wedding I would have had, if we had done things differently. I hope y'all have realized through Wedding Week, that I really did love my wedding, but it is always fun to think about what if...

What if we got married in Vegas?

Vegas Wedding by casey-amber featuring chain sunglasses

For Vegas I would have worn a short, flirty cocktail dress and accessorized with tons of bling and blue. If I had gotten married in Vegas, it would have to be somewhere like the Little White Wedding Chapel and we would have been whisked away in a pink Cadillac.

What if we got married on a tropical beach?

Beach Wedding by casey-amber featuring t strap shoes

It's not a secret that the Mister and I both love the coast. My dream beach wedding would take us away from the often time chilly (but still lovely) Oregon coast and brings us to a tropical beach. I would be wearing a long, flowing one strap dress, and accessorizing with a soft coral in my bouquet and flowered head band. My necklace and flip flops would give us a touch of sparkle with diamond starfish.

What if we had gotten married at the courthouse?

Courthouse Wedding by casey-amber featuring platform pumps

My wedding had close to 300 guests. Sometimes I get jealous of women who went down to the courthouse and shared their wedding vows with the only person who really matters. For my courthouse wedding I would wear a subtle grey dress with hints of hot pink. I probably would have to switch to the TOMS after the ceremony, but the heels would add some formality to the event.

Tomorrow if our official 2 year anniversary! I can't believe it's been two years already!

Wedding Week: Our reception and the details

And now a look at the reception and the little details. These pictures really don't capture everything.  We had three large tents set up, as well as the shop. My father in law hung giant white tarps up inside the shop (where the dance floor was) so it looked like the inside of a tent. He also put up so many strings of white bubble lights. It was really incredible. 

Our reception area, in and out of the tents

We were toasted and ate some cake

We threw some things.

We danced.

The flower girl basket and the ring bearer "pillow" (do you see the pink heart ring?) and a basket of favors.

Our guest book table

My grandma couldn't fly up for the wedding so her grand kids and great grand kids posed for a picture for her.

My bouquet. My dad passed away when I was 11, and he had red hair. I wanted a bouquet of all orange roses so that he could walk me down the aisle. 

I hope you enjoyed looking through the pictures from my wedding. It was fun going back through them and sharing with all of you!

Wedding Week: The Big Show

This is all about the most important part of our wedding: the ceremony. It's a little longer than most of my posts, but there are lots of pretty pictures :)

We had our ceremony and reception at the farm that my husband's dad grew up on. Currently his aunt and uncle live in the house and still run the farm today. Our ceremony took place on the lower part of the farm, over looking a wheat (or hay?) field in an oak grove.

When we decided to have our wedding and reception on the farm, we walked the farm to find the perfect location of our ceremony. This area did not make my short list. Many of the oak trees look like they had seen better days, there was a pile of yard debris waiting to be burned, and there was very little grass growing under the trees. But because of the way the roads and parking would work, this was really the best place for it.

She took her job very seriously.

If I am being honest, I was not excited at all. But my father-in-law told me not to worry about it. He spent pretty much every weekend and many evenings after he got off work, working on the ceremony site. He cleaned up the trees, planted grass and got rid of the burn pile. He also coordinated the harvesting of the hay and then we used the bales as seating for our guests.

I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful setting. My brother (who also walked me down the aisle), made the arbor we stood under as a wedding present. It is now in our backyard.

Unity Candle

Our ceremony was performed by Coach Ron. He was the campus security monitor/volleyball coach at the school I work at. He also is a minister. The Mister grew up Catholic, and I am a non-church going Christian. Because I didn't want to go through all the classes to become Catholic, we couldn't have a Catholic priest perform the ceremony. I didn't want to just Google "justice of the peace" and pick one, so I approached Coach about performing the ceremony. It was so nice knowing the man who was playing such a huge role in my life. His part of the ceremony was funny, touching and was really loving. 

We had two readings in our ceremony, as well as the Blessing of the Hands. We said the traditional vows. I love knowing that we said the same words that both of our parents said on their wedding day. 

After the ceremony was over, we rode off in a 1960's Cadillac limo. (That same limo drove me and all of my bridesmaids down to the ceremony site to start the wedding.)