Nine.

Today is our 9th anniversary. I was sitting at home, alone, having done half my workout before I realized, "Hey! I'm alone!" Officer Hottie is at work. I'm pretty sure this is our first anniversary he hasn't taken the day off. He did want to take it off but he waited too long and one of the gals from his crew is at refresher training so he couldn't. But his sergeant let him take tomorrow off so we'll still get lots of celebrating in. Although I want him home with me today I have lots of plans. Mostly they include turning up the music really loud and cleaning my house from top to bottom. It's just that with four kids this place gets turned upside down and I get so behind and it is rare that I am the only one home so I plan on taking full advantage...after I finish this post of course.

Since I'm thinking about the nine wonderful years I've spent married to Officer Hottie, I thought I would share a little bit about how our relationship began (because I'm sure you've just been dying to know...right? Right? Hello?)

The first time I ever saw OH I was working in a Bible bookstore. He had just returned from a stint in Hawaii with YWAM and was with his little sister. I only knew she was his little sister because he said to me, as I was ringing up his items, "I hate it when my mom makes me drag my sister with me." It was the first time in all my life that I remember realizing a guy wanted me to know he was single and that the girl with him wasn't an issue! He had a humongous beard and was wearing flip flops, in November, and a yellow beanie with braids. And when he walked away from my counter, I am not lying when I say I thought, "Wow, I could marry that man." And then I thought, "Weren't you paying attention to what he was wearing?! His hat had BRAIDS!" I tried to brush it off since I had no idea who he was. I'd never seen him before so I didn't know if I'd ever see him again. Soon after that, while attending classes at the local community college, I began talking with Kev, a frequent bookstore customer, and it just so happened that he and OH were good friends. Kev started bringing OH in to the bookstore with him on his almost daily visits, I realized later because he had a crush on the girl I worked with and didn't want to look like a stalker. OH would come in and look at CD's, or books; every once in awhile he'd chat with me. During a break at college one day, Kev started asking me questions about what kind of music I liked, what kind of movies I wanted to see and when I told him he would respond with "Oh! Officer Hottie really likes that band too!" or "Wow...OH has been talking about seeing that movie." (I should note that Kev would hate people thinking he actually referred to OH as 'Officer Hottie'. Sorry Kev...but not really.) One day I told him I'd been given tickets to see Audio Adrenaline (pretty sure I just aged myself there) and Kev told me I should ask OH to go with me. My response? "I don't ask guys out. Ever."
Funny thing...next time OH and Kev happened by the bookstore I was asked to see a movie. The conversation went something like this...


OH: You know what movie I've really been wanting to see?
Me: Which? (giggle giggle, hair flip)
OH: Scream 3 (I just aged myself again)
Me: Are you serious? I totally want to see that movie. I just told Kev that at school today! (clueless grin)
OH: Really? (Not so clueless grin.) Well...would you like to go see it? With me?
Me: Oh my gosh! Yes! (dang...too eager) I mean, yeah, sure, that would be fun.
OH: Cool.

And then no asking for my phone number. (More on that in a later post) So a week later when he came back into the bookstore and said, "Hey, we were supposed to see a movie, weren't we?" I decided I should just give him my phone number. Home and cell. Our first date was February 11, 2000. We went and had fried rice for lunch and then went to see Scream 3. Later OH told me he'd never seen any of the Scream movies and really could care less about seeing them ... And yes, I did take him to the Audio Adrenaline concert. It was awesome.

Less than a year later, February 3, 2001 we had a blip at the bottom of our wedding program ... I think Kev worked pretty hard to get that first date to happen.

So here we are, nine years of marriage later, and this is what I would like to say to my husband...

Thank you for nine wonderful years of marriage. Thank you for putting me first; above work, above life, even above the kids. Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for being faithful to me. Thank you for working so hard to provide for me. Thank you for letting me stay home to raise our children. Thank you for turning on the fan every night. Thank you for loving the Lord; for serving Him and being faithful to being the man He has called you to be. You are the one I want. You make my heart race. You take my breath away. My stomach does flip flops when you walk in the door. It is an honor to be your wife, to stand by your side, to be the one you come home to. It is a pleasure to raise your children. I am proud of you, of your accomplishments, of the man you are. I want to be alone with you. I like you. I want to grow old with you. You still my favorite flavor...I cannot get enough.