It all started with a few notes back and forth in high school. Do high school kids even wrote notes to each other anymore? If they don't they should! I still have some of our notes. One specifically says "are we going to do this or what?" referring to going to dinner I think. We did obviously go to dinner with our friends Brett and Cassidy who had actually gone on their first date just a week before us. I know for sure that I talked more to Brett during that date than I did to Andrew. We were the talkers of the group so we just talked and then realized that could have been a bad thing. I'm confident now it wasn't considering Brett and Cassidy are married too!
Have you ever heard the saying 'opposites attract'? Well in our case it's so true. Have you ever heard that the more time people spend together the more alike they become? Also so VERY true for us. I was a softball player. Andrew was super smart, in a band, and loved by everyone. There was more to both of us but you get the point. Different. We had the same group of friends and hung out in group settings for two years before we even went on a date. Now. We say the same things and look at each other like the other one is cthe crazy one. We enjoy many more of the same things. We also have our differences that make us individual but we have rubbed off on each other over time.
Something that many people probably don't know is that we were both pretty straight forward about our expectations for this relationship that seemed to be forming. Neither one of us were looking for anything serious but were up to seeing where this lead us. (All this time later but nothing serious in the beginning who would have thought!) We also said things like if one person cheats it's over, no "breaks" because those never work anyway, and I'm sure other crazy specific stuff that has slipped my mind since then. Who does that? Us apparently and you know what it worked and still works.
When the time came to go to college he went to OU and I went to UCO. I never even considered trying to go to OU. I had my mind made up about what I wanted to do with my life and UCO was the place for me to go. He was the same way. I figured if we could make it through football season of our freshman year of college we would some day be married. Guess what people we made it! It wasn't always easy being at two different colleges but we made it work. Actually by the time we graduated from college and moved away together we didn't know what to do being together so much. It was strange for us.
College graduation rolled around and I frantically researched how to get certified to teach in other states. Andrew interviewed for jobs in TX and all over OK. He accepted a job in Tulsa and soon after I did too. We found a house to live in and with the help of family and friends made the move up the turnpike. (We actually still love in the house same house today.) Just months after moving and getting used to being around each other all the time Andrew left for a field assignment for work. He was gone for months and I was stuck in a new town where I knew very few people. Lucky for me a fellow new teacher at my school lived close by and we hung out a lot. My mentor teacher and neighbors were also very helpful during this time. After being gone for 5 months or something like that he came back. While he was away it was like college all over again except our times we saw each other were longer inbetween.
We lived in Tulsa for amost two years before we got married. I was actually ready to pack up and move if he didn't make the marriage thing official. Clearly he did. We got engaged in November of 2008 and married in March of 2009. No need for a long engagement because we had been together for so long already. Before we got married though we bought a house together. October of 2008 actually we bought the house we had been renting.
The summer of 2010 Andrew went to work in PA for a few months. I went to visit him there and got an in for a new teaching job. I ended up getting the job and changed school districts and grades. It was the best and worst thing. Andrew came back from his field assignment after the school year had started. I was having a hard time figuring out why this new school and grade was kicking my butt so bad. Then I realized it wasn't the new school or grade but instead the baby that was growing inside me. Just like that we were on to the next step in our lives ready or not.
A few job changes later for Andrew and a new job for me here we are. Our boy is smart, healthy and the best thing we have ever done. He is simultaneously the most fun and hardest work there is. His looks, attitude, learning style, and demeanor are such a great mixture of us.
Some other random facts about us. We don't celebrate or even remember dates that most people typically do. I had to ask him what year we got married...oops. We do celebrate our anniversary every year. We have a bottle of champagne ontop of our fridge that we bought to drink on celebration of buying our house. It's still sitting there, maybe we will buy a new bottle and actually drink it when we buy a new house someday. We live in the moment enjoying the here and now not dwelling on the past.
I look forward to many more years filled with fun planned and spontaneous adventures!
~Vanessa~
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