Every day while Tony was gone, we each wrote memories of each other to share when we got back. Here are mine:
I remember being newlyweds at Villa Maria. You carried me out and spun around with me in the rain. We took long walks in the afternoon, talking about our feelings and getting to know one another. We got memberships at Gold’s Gym, and we used to sit on the edge of the jacuzzi and talk. On Valentine’s Day, we shopped for clothes at D.I., and then went to Tucano’s for dinner. You asked me what color of roses I wanted 🙂
We drove out to San Diego for our first Thanksgiving after we were married. We went “house-hunting.” We also drove down to Balboa Park all by ourselves. Remember how that pinecone-thing with the red berries fell right in front of us like a sign from heaven as we were walking in the Gaslamp District? We hung it up from our rearview mirror and considered it an omen for our move to San Diego.
We got into extreme sports when we were dating. We went monster trucking with Matt Valentine (“look at the Ford pulling the Chevy out of the mud. Guffaw, guffaw.”). We got scuba certified (when I got cold even in a wetsuit, I was prescribed the “Brooks twinkie diet”). We even somehow ended up alone in the Stake President’s office with Maggie and Kacey Cluff (don’t remember how that happened, but it was a strange moment).
At our first Thanksgiving by ourselves, we mistook the front of the turkey for the back, and almost carmelized a plastic bag full of giblets. Hannah arrived just in time to save the holiday from culinary disaster, although Benjamin still managed to burn the pineapple bacon wraps. He also fed Axa a quite unseemly number of olives. For dinner, we tied her into her seat using the didymos.
I think our first “great adventure” was our summer in the Philippines. That’s when I first realized there was some irremediable difference between us and other people. Remember, my dad encouraged us on that one. We were agonizing over the vaccine schedule before we went, and he said to just go and finish vaccinating her there. We never ended up vaccinating, and now we’re happy.
Among the most of-repeated memories are our many walks in San Diego and Washington, dreaming about moving to Italy and France. We spent so many happy hours imagining just how life would be. Now we’re here, and it’s all true, and still we dream bigger and bigger and bigger. But the most beautiful part of the dream is that somehow we’ve fallen into it together.