October 24th.

Friday marked the 10th anniversary of Jeff and I's first date. (He's probably going to kill me for some of the things you're about to see!!) Ever since we've gotten married and have a "real" anniversary, we've always kind of just said, "Oh, it's our anniversary!" when October 24th rolls around, but this year, Jeff remembered it was our 10th! About a month ago, we were in the car and he looked at me and said, "Can you believe we've been together for 10 years?" I couldn't believe he put that together! Maybe I don't give him enough credit, right? :)

So, a little bit on our history... Jeff and I met probably 12-13 years ago at Youth Choir at our church, Prestonwood. We were friends and kind of ran around in the same circle at church. (I say circle because I think it proves better for the church than "cliche", anyone agree?) So anyway, he dated a few different girls while I knew him and I dated a few different guys... yes, mostly his best friends to this day. But one day, out of the blue, it just clicked. I don't know if that would be his testimony to it, but for me, it was like suddenly a light went off and I all of a sudden thought that I wanted to maybe date this guy that I had known for a while. (Hey, it hadn't worked out with the other ones, right?)

So, he went to my high school homecoming as another girl's date and I of course went with my best friend at the time, Drew. When I arrived at the dance, Jeff and I hung out all night long and kind of lost our dates. I know, that's so rude and I will always tell Brady that he needs to stay with his date at a dance, but it all worked out in this situation, right? So that night, Jeff asked me to go to his high school dance which was two weeks later... October 24th. Our first official date!

So on Friday, what did we decide to do? We went on our first date again. We drove all the way out to Frisco and ate at La Hacienda Ranch, just like we did that night 10 years ago. We skipped the dance part, but we drove straight to 7-11 to get slurpees (just like that night) and we went to the park where Jeff asked me to be his girlfriend. I know it sounds so cheesy, but we had a wonderful time reliving some of our most favorite (and least favorite) memories of the past 10 years. Everywhere we drove, we were reminded of an event, a joke, a movie, a date, a fight or a kiss. We drive by these places all the time and never think anything of it, but tonight was different. We were on a mission.

When we got back home, I had retrieved ALL of our 'junk' that we'd accumulated from each other over the past 10 years. I know that this isn't near all of it, because Jeff used to make me stuff all of the time for our 'month' anniversaries. For my 17th birthday, he recorded me a tape. This isn't just a mix tape, people. He SANG on this tape for me. (If any of you do not know, Jeff has an incredibly beautiful voice and was the lead in all of the christmas muscials back in the day. He's super modest about this now and doesn't want anyone to know... so if I can find a way to get this tape on my computer, I will!! I want to hear it again!) I think we killed a rainforest or two with all of the paper we wrote on and cards we bought! I surprised we didn't put Hallmark out of business! I can't believe how serious we were about each other. We were absolutely CRAZY in love. Jeff wrote me poems, ya'll! POEMS!! (I asked Jeff about this because it doesn't happen anymore and he told me that he thinks he probably copied them from a book or something!) Regardless, we had a wonderful time going through our old pictures, memories, etc.

We ALSO had a great time because Jeff surprised me with the very best anniversary present ever! On Friday, the partners at his law firm walked into his office and made him a job offer for when he graduates! Yay!! This has been a long time prayer request for us and we are so appreciative of everyone being so encouraging during this time! Thank you to all of our prayer warriors out there!! We are tremendously blessed, and we have learned a ton about ourselves and our marriage during our season of waiting! We almost don't know what to do now that it's over!

The night we 'hit it off' at TCA Homecoming

(with Jeff's date - Melody)

All of our "Junk" that has been accumulated.

This is a picture of a picture, so it's really glare-y, 

but I just had to show Jeff in his Zuit Suit!

Jeff's Football Button - His Junior Year

Like I said, Jeff was the star of all of the Christmas Musicals.

This one was "For Unto Ya'll" and he was Gabe. (Gabriel?)

This was the "first" picture we took together when we 

liked each other. It was the week between my Homecoming

and his dance. He was going on a date with someone else the next night

so he was coming over to make sure I was okay with it. :)

A Poem Jeff claims he copied. (I think he's just trying to

get out of writing new ones!)

Just SOME of the cards from our collection.

The tape that Jeff made me for my 17th Birthday.