Ten Years! (Or a very cheesy post in which I gush about my husband)

We weren't dorks or anything 10 years ago. Right?

Today marks ten years since my husband and I officially started dating. Ten! I can't believe how fast it's gone!
I still remember the first time I saw him, standing in my friend Becca's driveway. My first thought? "Crap. He's cute." How romantic.

It was far too early in the morning. My sister had talked me into going with her to a music festival 9 hours away. She was 16 at the time and my parents would only let her go if I went too. We meet up with a few friends and friends of friends at Becca's. Her friend Joe had borrowed a van and we were all standing around, waiting for this Joe guy to arrive. I'd just ended my one and only relationship and was looking forward to starting college without a boyfriend or any kind of romantic complications.

The van pulls up and out steps tall, dark and handsome, sporting tattoos and a couple piercing. Becca's friends were all bookish types. They wore polos and khakis and played on their church worship teams. This guy? This guy was NOT what I pictured.

My mom leaned over to whisper in my ear, "can you introduce me to this Joe guy? I want to know who's driving."

"I've never met him," I mumbled, attempting to not look like I cared.
The LAST thing I wanted was to care.

We spent the next couple days attempting to ignore each other. While I was eighteen and had never been kissed, he had dated most of the other girls on the trip. Yeah. Awkward.

And then, one fateful night, he mentioned he was in film school. I had managed to scare off every one of my film watching friends by my constant critiques of every movie we watched.
It wasn't exactly love at first sight, but by the end of the trip, we were inseparable. I kind of assumed it was one of those summer flings. You know, you meet at camp or something, spend every waking hour together, promise to write when you get home and you loose touch before school starts.

Instead, he called. And I emailed. He drove out to see me. I agreed to run sound for the musical he was stage managing. We went to concerts. We watched movies. We held hands. We kissed in the driveway of his ex-girlfriend's house. And at the beach. And in the lake. And at concerts. And at the movies.

(Hey, eighteen years without a kiss! I had a lot of making, er, up to do!)

The fact that we were dating aside, I wanted to wait on the whole relationship thing. I didn't want a label. I didn't want to start college with a boyfriend.

That lasted until August 11, 2001. Just about 40 days after we met. And four months after that, on December 17, 2001, he proposed. One the beach. With roses. It was amazing.

So here we are, ten years later. Is it cheesy if I say I love him more now than I did then? 'Cause I do. He's still gorgeous, he still makes me laugh, he still holds me when I cry. He's an awesome husband and an amazing father. He's grown up beside me and held on with me as life has thrown us up and down. He's my best friend, my partner, my playmate. I look back at the last ten years and I pray we have 50 or 60 or 70 years left. Because the last ten went way too fast. I want to slow down, hold on and savor every minute because life is precious and love is precious and I have no idea how I got so lucky.

Ok. Enough cheese. Marriage is awesome. Joe is awesome. The end. Here's to another ten!