Ten Years

Wow. It has been 10 years (and one day, since I wasn't able to post this yesterday) since Andrew and I met in person. I can't remember life without him... and I don't want to!

We had met online a few weeks before and had been chatting here and there, but most of the time we would seem to just miss each other. I would get the little ICQ "uh-oh!" from him right as I was ready to log off for the night. The the first time he paged me (yes, paged me... we're talking 10 years ago here, people!), I was on a date with someone else, so I didn't call him back. Thankfully for me he was persistent even though it seemed as though I was trying to blow him off. When we finally did connect on the phone, we decided to meet up at Jamaican Blue, a coffee house that I frequented in downtown Scottsdale. I had a picture of him, but he had no idea what he was walking into, since I didn't have a picture I could send him and all I would tell him was that I was "average". I think he was a little scared! But we found each other and talked for a bit, and then decided to try to find somewhere to eat dinner. He didn't want to take me to the Olive Garden, since he thought that would be super lame, but it was the thought in the back of his head in case we didn't find anything better along the way. Of course, we ended up at the Olive Garden.

Our waiter had a strange obsession with Romano Cheese, and offered some to us every time he came to our table... even when he brought us drinks. We had great conversation. I don't remember anything we talked about, but I remember laughing a lot... partly because I was "first-date nervous" and partly because I hadn't been desensitized to his brand of humor yet (I am now!). =) After dinner we went back to Jamaican Blue where my car was and decided to go walking around the Scottsdale Civic Center. While we were walking, I saw a swan that looked like it might be dead, so I wanted to throw a rock at it to see if it moved. But there was some strange dude lurking around us, so I didn't do it... I sure hope that swan was ok!

Afer a while we returned to our cars, and he gave me a hug goodbye. He will tell you the hug lasted a little longer than he was comfortable with, but I didn't hear any complaints at the time. =)

And that's what started it all. April 7, 1999 is definitely a day for the history books... the Maple history books anyway. One day short of 3 years later (April 6, 2002 for those of you keeping score at home) we were married.

So much has happened in the last 10 years, and there is no one else I would have wanted to share any of it with. Thank you, my love, for a wonderful decade. I look forward to many more together. I love you!