Nine years down, eternity to go

Today is our ninth anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long. On one hand, I have a hard time remembering what it was like to not be married to Scott. On the other hand, NINE YEARS?!?!?! That seems like an awfully long time, doesn't it? And how old does that make me?

Scott and I met in January of 1998. My roommate Jamey and I decided to take a skiing class at BYU, and it's a darn good thing I did because I hadn't ski'd for several years before that, and my newfound love of skiing was pretty important to our first meeting. One Friday night, my roommate Erin was going up to Brighton with a boy she worked with, Dave. I was going to the same resort, but with my friend Jim. We talked about maybe meeting up there on the mountain. I ran into Erin near the bottom of the chair lift and she introduced me to Dave, the guy she worked with and his twin brother Scott. (She actually introduced me to him as Mike, but I eventually found out his real name.) I thought he was cute, but didn't really talk to him much. After the resort shut down, Erin invited everyone back to her parents' house, which was at the bottom of the mountain. Back at the house, when Scott took off all his snowboarding gear, I was able to see just how cute he really was. I don't really believe in love at first sight, but in this case, I just might. Let's just say I was completely smitten.

I thought about Scott a lot after that night, but was disappointed when Erin told me later that he had a girlfriend. I ran into him a couple of times on campus, but he had a girlfriend, so of course he didn't ask me out or anything. A few weeks later, and after seeing him a couple more times on the mountain and on campus, Erin informed me that he had broken up with his girlfriend (he swears that it was so he could date me, but I'm not so sure). About a week later, I wanted to get the ball rolling, but didn't want to come right out and ask him out - I was never really a date initiator. So Erin and I devised the "perfect" plan of having a "party" at our house and inviting Scott and his brother Dave over. Only we only invited them. Unfortunately, Scott thought it was a real party, and since he and his ex Emily had decided to try to remain friends, he invited her to come along with them! I was horrified when I opened the door and there stood Scott and EMILY!!! I ran to the back of our apartment and BEGGED my roomates to come hang out and invite some other people over because I was completely mortified. I was sure this guy had zero interest in me and I had made a huge fool out of myself. My roommates were nice enough to play along, but I think it was painfully obvious to Emily what was going on, because she asked Scott to take her home early. Scott came back, and the rest is history (aka we started dating shortly after that, dated for a year and a half with a couple of breakups along the way).

Timeline of our first 9 years:

January 1998 - met at Brighton Ski Resort

February 1998 - began dating

June 1998 - broke up because Scott didn't think it was going to go anywhere

August 1998 - got back together

Sometime in fall 1998 - broke up because I didn't think Scott was serious, and thought he would rather snowboard for the rest of his life than settle down and get married

April 24, 1999 - Scott proposed

July 2, 1999 - Married in the Portland, Oregon LDS Temple

September 1999 - Moved to Washington DC for Scott's internship

December 1999- Moved to Orem, UT

April 2000 - Scott's BYU graduation (I had graduated in December, but walked with him, Dave and Sarah in the ceremony)

September 2001 - Moved back out to Washington DC for me to work at the American Physical Therapy Association, Scott got a job at the Senate

December 2001 - Scott finished grad school

March 2003 - Avery was born

May 2004 - we bought our first home

March 2006 - Donovan was born

May 2008 - we moved to a new house in the same city

Marrying Scott has been the best decision I have ever made. A lot of people talk about how hard marriage is, how much work it takes, but for us it has always been easy. Maybe we just got the tough stuff over with while we were dating, I don't know. But he is truly my best friend. There is no one I'd rather spend time with. Scott is the only person that I never, ever get tired of being with. I could be with Scott 24 hours a day and still want to hang out with him. And the incredible thing is that he wants to be with me too! Sometimes I am amazed at how much I lucked out.