Happy Birthday, Hubby!

Today is Brandon's 30th birthday.  He is still in bed.  Because it's his birthday.  In honor of his birthday, I thought I would continue my little walk down memory lane...

When I finished this post, Brandon and I had dated all through the summer of 1997, and I was headed back to ACU.  We had both decided that we just didn't want to date anyone else.  I had dated my fair share of mediocre boys, and just didn't want to waste my time with them.  Brandon was head and shoulders better than any other guy I had ever dated.  And I am the only girl Brandon has ever dated, and he had no desire to repeat awkward silent dates with anyone other than me.  Abilene is about a 3 hour drive from our hometown, and we both got to know that drive very well over the next 9 months.  Doing the "long distance" thing was pretty miserable.  

My freshman year at college, I had a great time.  It was spent making new friends, creatively trying to have fun while not spending any money, dorm life, and dating.  I think I went to class sometimes, too.  We took road trips to random places like Denver City, TX and Taos, NM.  One weekend I loaded up 4 of my guy friends in my suburban and took them home for the weekend.  Our friends would host their own themed parties like the "White Trash Grub" (super fun, by the way, and great costumes).  There were bonfires at the lake and endless trips to Sonic, and Sadie Hawkins Week.

My sophomore year was a completely different story.  The place was the same.  The people were even the same.  I had moved to an apartment "on campus" with 3 of my girlfriends.  But instead of fun road trips, I was driving back home to see Brandon every chance I got.  We used to e-mail back and forth about twice a day.  These were times before the laptop computer had taken over college campuses, and I would go to the library computer lab twice a day to do e-mail.  Brandon and I soon realized that we could not go more than 2 weeks without seeing each other or we would lose our minds.  

That year was shaping up to be a very lonely year for me.  I was isolating myself from campus life at ACU.  All of my friends were doing their own things on the weekend, joining social clubs and spending time with friends, and I wasn't part of it, because I was never there.  And when I was there, I was completely distracted and boring people by talking about Brandon all the time.  I'm sure I drove everyone there crazy, because it would drive me crazy to see someone so wrapped up in her long distance boyfriend and talking about him incessantly.

One weekend in November, Brandon had driven to Abilene.  Back in these days, Brandon was driving a little bitty Volkswagon Rabbit convertible.  It, too, had no A/C, and his head would touch the ceiling when the roof was down.  So he usually had the roof off when he drove.  This particular weekend, it started to rain on him somewhere around Ranger, and he just kept driving though because there was no way of putting the roof on without stopping and doing it manually.  So he arrived, soaking wet, freezing cold, in west Texas in November.  I think it was that weekend that we finally said "I love you" to each other.  We had been dating for about 6 months at this point, and I had to be the one to say it first.  Of course.

By Christmas break, we were talking about marriage and pretty much knew that we would never have to worry about dating anyone else ever again.  We were 19 years old, sophomores in college, and we were absolutely certain.  I had gotten Brandon's Christmas gift a few weeks back.  I had a hard time figuring out what to get him.  We had only been dating a few months.  So I got him a long sleeve button up shirt.  He had worn these when we were dating in the summer, and had worn them during the fall as well.  I thought it was the perfect gift. 

Until I opened the Christmas gift he had gotten me.  

Diamond earrings.  

Okay, that was the perfect gift.

I got him a shirt, he got me diamonds.  Little did I know that this would be our gift giving pattern for many years to come.  Hey, I'm not complaining.

This has gotten long enough, for now.  But there's way more to the story.  Here is a random picture of Brandon and I in San Francisco last summer with about a thousand seals.  I'm off to Lowe's, now.  Because when it's your husband's birthday, you don't make him go to Lowe's to get fence posts and blinds.  Happy Birthday Brandon !