A Nod to our Favorite Dates

Chris claims we've been married for 8 happy years, we've actually been married for 9. He claims that one of those pregnancy years were really bad. He gets a good chuckle out of that joke.
I obviously didn't just marry him for his sense of humor! On August 20th, we celebrated our ninth anniversary. Chris and I usually celebrate by going to the temple to do some sealings...but this year we didn't have more than a few hours to celebrate...so, we did something a little bit different.
Every year, we take turns planning the anniversary date etc. and this year it was my turn. Because we merely had a few hours to spend I planned our anniversary date to be "A nod to our favorite dates of the past!"
I first started out the date, by picking him up at his office. This is symbolic of our first date back at college. On the first day of classes, Chris and I ran into each other on campus at BYU and he asked me out for that night (in which I give him credit for efficiency.) He asked me what apartment complex I lived in (Alpine Court Apartments) but he had no idea where it was located. Can't blame him, he'd been living in Brazil for the prior 2 years during his mission, he had no idea where things were in that town. So I asked him where he lived. Moon Apartments. I laughed and told him I'd pick him up. That night, I literally crossed the street and found his complex.
I ran into a guy in the parking lot and asked where apartment A-1 was and it was one of Chris' roommates, Logan. He escorted me to Chris' front door which was a whopping 50 yards from mine.

After I picked Chris up from his apartment, he took me to get a Jamba Juice, (I even remember that it was a flavor called Carribbean Passion,) and then we to a public park and went on the swings and down the slides. So, this year, on our anniversary, I took Chris to get a Jamba, and had planned on going to a park but it was 106 degrees in the shade that day....so it didn't quite sound so appealing or nostalgic.

Instead, we took our Jamba Juices to our location "from the past." Miniature Golfing. If our friends and family didn't know this by now, Chris and I are both extremely competitive against one another. On our very first date, when I was still in high school and Chris was packing for his freshman year in college, we went miniature golfing. Chris beat me by one stroke, very flirtatiously I might add. I couldn't believe it, but the experience gave us good fodder to write about during our few letters to one another. When Chris came back from his mission and we had been on a couple of dates, I figured a rematch was in order. We golfed again, but this time I beat him by one stroke. It has been going back an forth since then. He'll beat me by one stroke, and I, him.....this year, on our 9th anniversary date, I beat him, and I had two holes in one. Which when you think about it, for miniature golfing, that's really not that impressive, but I just thought I'd share that fact for posterity.... And to rub it in to my husband.

It was a great anniversary date filled with good memories. We had fun recalling all of the awkward dating moments we'd both had, why we were both glad to be out of that 'dating stage' of life, and why we were glad to have found each other. It was fun to remember some of our favorite dates and what made them fun. Still one of my favorite moments was on that first date back at college, when we went to the park with our Jambas. I remember sitting on the grass, talking to Chris and having a ''normal conversation.'' We sat and talked for hours without awkward pauses, or forced conversation topics. At one point, we looked at our watches and realized that we had been talking for 4 hours. I walked into the aparment that night and thought, "that's odd, everything seemed so comfortable." I hadn't dated anybody who caused me to think of that before.
So fast forward to 9 years later, where everything is still comfortable and perfect and simple.
We don't need fireworks, we make them ourselves. (Wow, that sounded a lot more philosophical than I anticipated.)