9 Years

Today marks 9 years since Parker asked me to be his girlfriend. Or did he actually ever ask? I honestly can't remember. I'll rephrase... today marks 9 years since Parker and I became "Facebook official". So romantic, right? Nevertheless, May 1, 2008 is the day we officially started dating. It's crazy that 9 whole years have passed, but here we are!

Parker and I met at Texas A&M University during our freshman year. He was in the Corps of Cadets and in the same company as a guy I went to high school with. My friend from high school introduced us, and we started casually talking and hanging out. Fun fact: the friend from high school is now my brother-in-law. He married my twin sister 6 weeks before Parker and I were married!

Parker and I briefly dated in the Fall of our freshman year before I decided we were both too busy and broke it off. I still liked him, but the timing just never seemed right. Another fun fact: Parker and I broke up twice during our dating days. I did it the first time, and he did it the second time. Most people don't know that, but we were babies and really had no clue how to do the whole relationship thing. Fast forward a few months to Spring of our freshman year, and I asked Parker to my Delta Gamma Formal. He was my date, we held hands on the bus, and we were officially dating a few days later. Shockingly enough, Nicholas Sparks hasn't come knocking on my door asking to turn our story into his next great best seller. All kidding aside, we love how we met and wouldn't change a second of our story. 

It's been an amazing 9 years with high highs and some low lows, but I've honestly loved every minute of it. I am a firm believer that even after you get engaged and married, you never stop dating. Even with a baby now in the mix, we still go on as many dates as we can and cherish whatever time we do get. 9 years down, forever to go!

For fun, here are some dating throwbacks from the good old college days!

Dating: It's Not Just For Dating

May 1st will always be a fun day to celebrate in our house. It's the day Parker and I officially started dating! The 2008 version of this day holds the life changing moment of becoming "Facebook official". #Ohdeargoodness

Once you get married, you don't typically celebrate the dating anniversary. This is true for us too, but we do always acknowledge this day and laugh at those two 19 year olds that each had a crush on the other. Parker and I have talked about what drew each of us to the other one, and if we are both being honest, we just thought the other was cute. Deep and meaningful, right? In all fairness, a lot of times you don't really know the person very well before you start dating. That's why you start dating. I fell in love with the person he is once I got to know him, but initially, I just thought he was nice to look at. :)

We dated about 2 years before getting engaged and another year after that before getting married. Those dating days were pure bliss. When you're in college with nothing to worry about but school and seeing your boyfriend, life is pretty darn sweet. Our date nights consisted of dinner and a movie from the start, and 8 years later, they still do. You just can't beat a yummy dinner out and a movie in our book!

After 8 years, if there is one thing we have learned, it's that dating isn't just for that dating phase. We still look forward to dates just as much as we used to, and we still crave that time away from everyday life to reconnect and focus on us. 

8 years later, I am very glad we became Facebook official! Seriously, I'm a little embarrassed even writing that...

Here are a few throwbacks from those golden dating days. We loved this phase of life!

Let's Have A Day Date

Since life has been in overdrive lately, Parker and I have been savoring all the little moments we get together. So basically, we have been living for the weekends. The week days are nuts and non-stop, but those weekends are glorious! With the weather finally sunny and beautiful (I promise I'll try not to complain as much next winter as I did this winter...oops), we have been spending as much time outside as possible. I actually wrote a blog post the other night on my laptop while we sat outside and hung out with the dogs. You just can't beat fresh air and furballs!
Day dates are a favorite of ours, especially the ones spent outside. This past weekend, we decided to have a day date doing yard work. So glamorous, right? #MarriedLife. Seriously though, we had the best time. Our yard had collected about 9 billion leaves since last Fall and I guess I was under the impression that they would just melt away with the snow or something. No such luck, so we had the delightful task of raking and bagging all of these leaves. It took two solid afternoons, but our backyard looks great (please housing conglomerates, give us back our deposit) and we had a blast together. 

So why did I dedicate a whole post to yard work? Well, it was just a fun memory that I wanted write down and remember. We are in the busy season of life, which means we have to take advantage of the opportunities we have to hang out with each other. We got our hands dirty, we were productive, and we were together. Life is good. 
The pups love it when we are outside with them. I think they both really thought they were helping in the leave-collecting business. Not so much, but they did a great job of standing there and looking cute. Darla ate sticks, because apparently if that dog isn't eating something at all times, she could die. I'm pretty sure that's the way she sees it. 

We had over 30 large bags of leaves by Sunday evening. Seriously, where did they all come from?

I felt like such a wimp because I was exhausted after an afternoon in the sun raking leaves! We had plans to go to the movie theater but both gladly opted for a movie on the couch instead. PSA: If you and your significant other are going to bag leaves, have one person hold the bag while the other puts leaves in. It goes so much faster than both of you bagging separately. So much faster. Okay, that's all.

7 Years of Dating Bliss

Today marks 7 years since Parker and I started dating. It's not really an anniversary that we celebrate per say, but it's fun to look back and remember the amazing moments that have made up the past 7 years. We've come a long way since 2008! We started dating when we were 19, so we were admittedly very young. There was just something about him that I was so drawn to, and I guess there was something about me that he liked too :). It's fun to see how far we've come! We were just two kids who thought the other one was cute. 7 years later, we've experienced the beauty of marriage, felt simultaneous joy and heartbreak with the loss of our daughter, managed to keep a dog alive, and made countless memories along the way. Every step has made us who we are today, and I wouldn't take back any of it. 

A concept that we have really tried to put into practice since tying the knot is that dating does not stop when you get married. We still need to make time for our relationship and work to foster an even stronger bond with each other as the days go by. You always hear marriage is work, and I suppose at times it is, but it's such fun work. Going on dates is part of that fun work. We are big on date nights and try to go out together at least once a week. We don't usually do anything extravagant, but getting out of the house for a quick bite to eat or catching a movie does wonders! Date night in is also popular in our house. We love watching movies or catching the latest episode of our favorite TV show, Survivor. The point of all of this rambling is that date nights are still important and just as fun post-marriage. 

In honor of the dating anniversary, I pulled some of my favorite dating pictures from the archives. It's been a beautiful ride, and I have loved every minute of it! These pictures are in no particular order, but they all span from 2008-2010. 

This was when he had just come home from a month long cruise with the Navy one summer.

This was at a ball- one of many over the years!

This is one of the first pictures we ever took. We are at my grandparents' house our first summer of dating.

This is a Delta Gamma formal. No, it wasn't themed. For some reason, I thought a flapper dress was a good idea. I don't know why.

This was taken one Friday night hanging out with friends.

This was taken at his parents' house one weekend home.

This was one of our first football games together.

And last but not least, the proposal :)

It's been a great 7 years! Here's to 70 more!

2,190 Days of Dating

A less obnoxious title for this post would be "6 Years". Today marks 6 years since Parker and I started dating. In some ways that seems like so long, and in others it seems like we've been together much longer than that. We don't really celebrate the dating anniversary since we are married, but May 1st will forever be ingrained in my head as the day we took the plunge and became Facebook official. It's not official until it's on Facebook, right? Yes, I am embarrassed that I just wrote that.

We started dating just a few short days before school let out for the summer in 2008. We lived four hours apart, so we spent most of the first 3 months long distance. Looking back on those first couple of months, I am not that sure why we stayed together. I liked him and he liked me, but we didn't know much about each other at all. My favorite things about Parker- his servant's heart, his compassion, and his honesty- are all things I learned much later in our relationship. All I know is God brought us together, and I am so glad that He did.

I guess the significance of acknowledging this dating relationship milestone is to recognize that dating is something that doesn't go away when you get married. We are constantly learning new things about each other, learning patience for the things that bug us, and navigating the bumps and bruises of life together. If we would have stopped dating when we got married, our relationship would be so much less fulfilling and so much less rewarding than it is today. The more we explore and learn new things about each other, the more fun it is. 

Just the other day, we were riding in the car and he punched me in the arm. Before I could whip around and ask what the heck that was for, he said "slug bug no take backs!!". In almost six years of dating, that was a first. The rest of our car trip consisted of hitting the other one every time we saw another Beetle and making up other excuses to hit each other like the "PT Cruiser Bruiser". We might have problems. Anyway, it's the fun, new experiences that we look forward to. That might be just about the worst example I could have come up with, but you get the point. Never stop dating.

So Parker, here's to six years of laughing, loving, bickering, snuggling, purposely annoying, and learning more and more each day. And I thought I loved you then!

circa 2008 (the summer we began dating) and 2014

We Were How Old?!

I stumbled through some old pictures of Parker and me on Facebook and thought they would be fun to share. We met when we were 18 years old...18! We were babies! We met in 2007, started dating in 2008, got engaged in 2010, and were married in 2011. I thought I'd share some pictures from the early years. I can't believe how young we look! Apologies, this post is primarily a picture montage, but isn't that really the best kind?

November 2007- our first Navy Ball

 

September 2008- one of our first Aggie football games together

October 2008- Midnight Yell (about a month before we said the "L" word!)

June 2009- Reunited after Parker's first summer cruise with the Navy

July 2009- Beach getaway with my family- The hat was cool back then. Now, not so much.

 February 2010- Celebrating Valentine's Day

August 2010- Family beach trip, just a few days before we got engaged

We were so young! Okay, really we still are.

Always Dating

Somehow during packing up our lives for our big move in 2 days, I had a chance to glance at a calendar and realized today is May 1st! I think this day will forever be ingrained in my brain because 5 years ago today, Parker and I started dating. I don't have a sweet mushy gushy story about how he asked me to be his girlfriend in a hot air balloon or we shared a plate of spaghetti and had a Lady & the Tramp moment, but on this day 5 years ago, our story began.

So I started thinking. Now that we are married, we don't really celebrate this day as an anniversary anymore, and I think that's normal. However, there was something so sweet about those first few years and celebrating our anniversary on May 1st. When Parker and I took vows and said "till death do us part", we meant it with whole-hearted conviction. No matter what happens, it's us to the end. With dating, things were obviously a little lighter. We were together three years before we got married, and each May 1st we celebrated meant we were still together and things were going in a more long-term direction. I knew early on that Parker was the one, and he knew that I was the one, but we still wanted to enjoy the dating phase of our relationship. I know so many friends who just want to be married, and marriage is awesome, but I would never wish away the dating phase. All of those firsts are so special!

Even though we are married and coming up on our second wedding anniversary, Parker and I always try to keep dating. Marriage is an absolute blast, but it's also a lot of work, and anyone that tells you differently is lying. It's fun work, but it's work and can be trying at times. Making time for each other is so important. We still love going on date nights and learning new things about each other. Whether it's dinner and a movie or game night, we try to make sure we make time for dating. Last night we opened a questionably old bottle of wine and ate chocolate since the Navy won't move those things, and it was the perfect little date night in. It doesn't matter what the date is, but I think dating is such an important part of marriage. So in honor of our 5th dating anniversary, here are some throwback pictures from those first few years together.

What do you do in your relationship to make sure you're always dating?? I'd love to hear! :)