I was bingeing on some of my favorite blogs the other day when I came across an amazing post by Rachel from The Random Writings of Rachel. I absolutely loved one of her post ideas, so I decided to do my own spin on it and take a look back at the history that is Ryan and I. We’ve been together for six years now (and married four), and it’s been nothing but craziness, chaos, love, and laughter since the beginning. There’s no real reason for this post except that I’m waxing nostalgic with all the craziness and adventure coming up I’m linking up today with Momfessionals for Friday Favorites and Smidge of This for 5 on Friday. Here are five of the most ridiculous memories and facts about our history together 🙂
1 // A little-known fact beyond our inner circle is that Ryan and I met online. What dating site, you ask? HA. It’s an even littler-known dating site known as LDS Singles. It’s this absolutely archaic Mormon version of Match.com, and I remember signing up for it about a year after I converted to the church. One of the first guys that messaged me on there sent me a dissertation about the wifely qualities he was looking for and remarked that I had multiple ear piercings, which wouldn’t fly. He proceeded to tell me that if I was amenable to reducing it to one pair of earrings, he could see a future with me. So, yeah. I logged out, and I didn’t log back in for a couple years. I forgot I had my account until I got a message in my Gmail that I had a message from someone with the username “RedDogRy.” I had to see what gem had that ridiculous handle, so I somehow found my password, logged in, and read his moderately insulting/flirtatious email. So, I shot my own insulting email back, and we proceeded to hurl insults at each other until we switched to doing so via Gmail instead. Okay, I’ll admit, the insults were only slightly insulting…they were sarcasm, in which I’m fluent. We talked for about two weeks online, then we spoke on the phone daily for three months before I finally flew to Arizona to meet this guy. Yikes. There was a 10% chance he was catfishing me and a 15% chance he was a serial killer. I liked the odds, so I gave it a go.
This was our first picture together at a comedy club in Tucson.
2 // We dated for about 3 months then, while he was visiting me in the New Hampshire, I broke up with him. He flew home to Fort Huachuca, and most of my CrossFit friends were super happy about it. One of my best friends, Pete, however, told me I was making a mistake. Let’s be honest. It was kind of a joke of a breakup. Within a week, we were talking again, and within a month, we were back together. #failbreakup…By October of 2013, we were seriously talking about marriage, but we knew that with the long-distance, we had to test actually being together for a long period of time. So, I flew out to Arizona and “lived” with him for three weeks. During that time, we went to Oktoberfest in Sierra Vista. Like the fail Mormons we were, we went and partook of many of the libations. I learned the hard way that I don’t tolerate Jaegermeister well. While we waited for the cab to take us home, I moaned and cried on a pile of rocks by the bank parking lot. Then, once we got home, I forced myself to throw it all up before re-joining the crowd. Ryan says that’s when he knew that, if that’s me at my absolute worst, he could marry me. (Sidenote…the engagement took another month and a trip to Utah.)
3 // Shortly after we got married, Ryan and I took a cruise to Mexico. It was his first cruise, and since I work in cruising, I was an old pro at the time. We’d been married about 3 months at the time, and we were excited to live it up and enjoy our life as newlyweds while living in Arizona for the year. During the cruise, we had a lot of fun at a tequila distillery. They ran out of food, so they made it up to us by way of shots. It was a lot of fun. I did not, however, feel good after. I couldn’t seem to bounce back. The seas were rocky, and the ship was rolling, but I’ve never gotten seasick before. I couldn’t understand it. We stayed busy to keep my mind off my hormonal mood swings and angst. We held baby donkeys, went zip-lining, ate too much ice cream, and got scammed by a local into paying $10 to hold her iguana. It wasn’t until we got to shore that the pregnancy test showed positive, and we discovered that the pill isn’t always effective. Whoops.
4 // When we moved to Fort Drum, we had a crash course in adulting. Spencer was born 13 days before we moved, I was in the throes of postpartum depression, we were attempting to close on our new home, and our furniture was somewhere in America – courtesy of an Army moving company. We managed to close on our home after two failed attempts (our bank forgot the documents twice.) We had the closing from hell. I remember sitting with our realtor, lawyers, our bank rep, and a newborn, who wanted to nurse every hour…for the six hours we sat there. Eventually, though, we closed, got our keys officially (I say “officially” because our realtor snuck them to us earlier to stick the cats in the house), and moved into our empty home, which stayed devoid of furniture for the next 16 days. We slept on an air mattress and changed Spencer on the floor. We ate dinner in camp chairs. I remember posting that we’d look back and laugh. Thankfully, we really do.
5 // As I mentioned before, Ryan and I are Mormon. We’re not the best Mormons, but we really do try, and we knew we wanted to raise our boys in a foundation of faith. Our first couple married years were very, very trying. We were lucky enough to have absolutely fantastic sister missionaries who supported us along the way, but it was hard. We had a lot of hurdles to overcome. We had meetings with our bishop, started tithing, worked to become worthy of the temple, and finally, finally got our temple recommends. We had two little boys by the time we were able to enter the Palmyra New York temple in December of 2016. It was a first for me. I’d never been in the temple – or any temple – for that matter. That was the day that my little family was sealed for time and all eternity. We’re a work in progress, folks. Plain and simple, but that day remains precious to me.
It’s fun looking back at all we’ve accomplished in our six years together thus far. I couldn’t imagine life without Ryan, and the amount of laughter in our lives is probably the best thing ever. We’re exhausted, happy, loved, and enjoying the chaos that is our lives. Cheers to all the adventures to come – including my knee surgery on Monday. Wish me luck!
