The Rest of the Story: Happily Ever After

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Amy

The sequel to yesterday’s “How We Met” post:

The rest of our story took a bit longer than the first part.

Hubby and I moved to North Carolina. We were finally in the same state. I figured it wouldn’t be long at all before we were engaged and married and having babies and living happily ever after.

Things didn’t quite work out that way. For various reasons, we had a longer road to marriage than I anticipated. At times it seemed to me like we would never get married.

It also seemed to me like everyone we knew was getting married except us.

*I just paused in writing and did a quick mental tally of eight weddings of friends and family members between about the time we moved to North Carolina and when we got engaged. We attended seven of them (two were on the same date, so we had to miss one).

Whatever. So marriage came more slowly than I thought it would. We were still very happy and life was good and, even not-married, we were living happily ever after anyway.

We were together.

We spent time with great friends.

We traveled.

Hubby taught me how to fish and we spent a lot of time on the water.

We trained together and ran a couple marathons.

We were silly. We laughed a lot. We had fun.

Then one day in July 2006, we were sitting in the office in our house. I was reading on the floor. Pink Floyd was playing in the background.

He turned to me and said, “So, I was thinking about asking you to marry me.”

Just like that.

I said, “Well, if you did, I’d say ‘yes’.”

And we were engaged.

It wasn’t a big production. But it was perfect.

“Sucks eating dinner alone, doesn’t it?”

“So, I was thinking about asking you to marry me.”

My husband is the master of the short-and-sweet-and-straight-to-my-heart one-liner.

We got married at the Farm, where we spent so much time during the first year of our relationship, in May 2008.

About two weeks later I was pregnant with Miss.

Five years later we have three precious daughters.

And I love him more than ever.

Happily. Ever. After.

How We Met: An Unlikely (But Totally True) Love Story

Posted on July 24, 2013November 15, 2014 by Amy

Linking up with Grace.

Last week, when my husband and I went to the church to speak with the priest and become members, we got onto the topic of how we met (he seemed interested!) and told him our story (at least some of it).

I love the story of how I met my man. If ever there was a clear example of two people being “meant to be…” Well, I think we’d be it.

In September of 2001, shortly after I started my final year of graduate school in Louisville, I got dumped. Hard. For another girl. It was ugly. I was bitter and depressed.

This is not important except to illustrate how amazing the following story is in light of this fact…

So. I was hating life, but I still had to complete my applications for my clinical internship and go on interviews.

I ended up getting interviews for a couple of internships in North Carolina. They were scheduled in January 2002. At the end of my second day of interviews, one of the other applicants happened to mention that she had to wait for her ride to come and pick her up. I told her I’d give her a ride if she’d show me a good place to go get dinner in downtown Chapel Hill, since she had done her undergraduate study there.

As I drove down Franklin Street, she pointed out a place called “Woody’s,” and said something like, “That place is a little sports bar that’s pretty nice and has decent food.” It seemed fine to me, so I dropped her off, went back to my hotel to change, and went back to Woody’s by myself to get dinner.

I walked in, wandered around for a minute to decide where I wanted to sit, and it turned out that the only open table in the place (at least that I could see) was right next to this guy:

He was also eating dinner by himself.

So I sat. I got a drink and ordered food, and noticed that the guy at the next table was quite handsome.

He ate his dinner.

I ate my dinner.

I watched a little bit of basketball, because there was nothing else to do while eating dinner by myself in a sports bar (the game on happened to be Michigan vs. Iowa!).

Then I noticed that he started to pay his bill. I could not believe that he was planning to leave without talking to me! I really wanted to talk to him, so I started frantically trying to come up with something to say that wouldn’t sound totally stupid.

This is where the above mentioned dumping seems amazing for two reasons – 1) If I hadn’t been dumped I would not have wanted to talk to him, I’m not that kind of gal; and 2) I was still pretty down in the dumps about that break up and was not interested in dating or flirting at all. But I really wanted to talk to Hubby.

Anyway, the best line I could come up with was, “Excuse me, can you see the score of the basketball game?” which of course I could see perfectly fine, but it was sort of small on the screen so I figured it would be plausible that I couldn’t make it out…

Then, just as I was about to blurt out my dumb pick up line he leaned over to my table and said, “Sucks eating dinner alone, eh?”

Smoooth.

I still get chills just thinking about it.

Of course, I invited him to join me. We drank PBR until the bar closed.

I learned that he was also interviewing for his next step in graduate school.

And I learned that we both had interviews in Nashville four days later.

Meant to be?

Of course! But I wasn’t so sure at the time. Although I’d had a fantastic time with him, and I got his number so we could get together again in Nashville, I had not yet decided that I would call him.

I went back to Kentucky and told my friend T about meeting him.

T: “So, are you gonna call him???”

Me: (kind of whiney and sulky) “I don’t know. What’s the point? He lives in Iowa. I live in Kentucky. Nothing would come of it anyway.”

T: “Whatever. You never know what could happen. Call him.”

So I did. Love that girl.

Hubby and I got together in Nashville after our interviews there. I enjoyed my time with him there just as much as I had in North Carolina. I thought he was funny and smart and thoughtful (he is all that and more, of course).

He went back to Iowa.

I went back to Louisville.

We began a courtship by phone (I know “courtship” is a weird word, but I don’t know what else to call it, since I can’t say we were “dating,” and “talking” just seems so junior high). We talked regularly for hours at a time. We talked about family and philosophy and our childhoods and life plans.

In June, he drove to Louisville to visit me.

(side note: I had a strange eye makeup thing going on back then, which you might notice in ALL of these photos. Don’t judge. I have never been good at applying eye makeup beyond mascara. A friend gave me a kit with instructions, which included white sparkly eyeliner and eye shadow. So, I wore it. A lot. These days I just stick to mascara.)

Hubby and I spent the next year visiting as often as we could.

As luck would have it, we matched for our internships about 10 hours from each other. That’s not the lucky part, but the fact that the Farm was exactly halfway between our two temporary towns was.

We spent many weekends at the Farm that year.

We flew to visit each other as often as we could (we were both in small towns so it was a three-flight trip every time).

We went to football games together (I lost a bet, which is to only reason I wore the sweatshirt you see on me in the picture below).

It seemed like all of his friends were getting married (but none of mine?) so we went to lots of weddings.

We talked about getting married ourselves.

Finally, after that first year, we both took jobs in North Carolina and ended up right back where we started.

And the rest is a story for another day.

Maybe tomorrow since I’m posting every day this week.

Nature’s Classroom

Posted on May 30, 2013May 31, 2013 by Amy

We got back last night after four days at the Farm. My girls haven’t been to the Farm in quite a while. They’ve grown a lot since last summer, and they really blossomed during this trip.

There is really no better learning and play than that which happens in the great outdoors.

The weather was kind of crummy. Rainy and windy and chilly much of the time we were there. But they still got lots of time outside.

The discoveries were plentiful.

We discovered that Lass has a love for fishing.

She’s like her Daddy. She was very determined to catch fish and particular about where she wanted to drop her line. She said, “I want to catch a whale, Daddy. But not a big whale, because that might break our rod. Just a little whale.”

She didn’t catch a whale, but she caught quite a few crappies for her efforts.

After she caught the first one she moved to a new spot and said, “Now I’m gonna catch another big fish.” And she did.

That sure made her Daddy smile.

Miss did some fishing too, but she was much less into it than Lass.

She was more interested in getting dirty. These girls love a good puddle, the muddier the better.

We discovered puddles. And mud.

It’s all just one big puddle for them…

As I mentioned, there was lots of rain during our visit, which meant lots of runoff. While we were taking a Ranger ride around the Farm, we discovered this area where the water was flowing down to a drainage pipe into one of the ponds.

Flowing water + Big puddles + Rocks for jumping = A perfect country “splash pad”

I halfheartedly tried to keep them sort of dry at first, but it just wasn’t going to happen.

Miss experimented with how far she could walk into a big puddle before it got deep enough to flow over the tops of her boots. Once it did, she didn’t care, but it was funny to watch her “testing the waters.”

Both girls were dumping water out of their boots when we were done.

Lass just wanted to roll in the water and repeatedly plunked herself down on her butt in a big puddle. I did draw the line at letting her lie down in it, though she would have if I had let her.

In the photo below she’s checking to see how wet her rear end was.

It was pretty wet.

She didn’t care one bit.

The drainage pipe emptied into the pond. My Father-in-law went to the empty-out end and called back through the pipe to the girls. It took them a few minutes to figure out who or what was calling them through that pipe. They got quite a kick out of it.

Baby Sis got a taste of the fun on the Farm this trip too.

She still isn’t quite sure that she likes grass, but we’re working on that one.

More discoveries:

Just before the girls found their “splash pad,” we were looking into the pond for crawdads. My husband caught two tadpoles, in different stages of metamorphosis. One was still fully “tadpole,” with no legs at all. The other was bigger and had his two back legs developed. It was so cool for the girls (and me) to see them like that side by side.

On a treasure hunt earlier in the trip, the girls were riding around the farm in the Ranger with their Dad, grandparents, cousins, and aunts and uncles (I stayed in the house with Sis for that one). They drove near a large area of tall grass and my brother-in-law’s bird dog stopped and stared at it. My brother-in-law said, “Get it!” and the dog ran to the grass, flushing out a huge turkey! Apparently it scared the heck out of everyone in the treasure hunting party. My girls are still talking about that turkey.

They discovered the fun of boat washing.

They are always up for any opportunity to get wet and play with bubbles.

They saw so much and learned so much in just four days.

Lass found a worm on the edge of one of the ponds. She was so proud of that worm.

Also near the pond was an almost fully intact skunk skeleton. It had been totally picked over by vultures, so there was no meat left on it, just a little bit of it’s hide hanging off. My father-in-law picked it up so Lass could look at it. It had the whole skull, spine, ribs, and most of the legs still all perfectly together. Lass has been talking about that ever since. “That skunk stinked my nose!” she says.

There was a killdeer’s nest in the rocks of the driveway. They got to check out the eggs and watch the things the Mama Killdeer did to try to lure us away from her babies.

Miss wanted so badly to catch that Mama Killdeer. She ran and chased that bird endlessly. Like her sister with the fish, she was determined.

She didn’t catch her.

The girls also got to see a very small bird’s nest in a tiny lilac tree. It had two eggs in it, from different birds. My husband and mother-in-law explained to the girls (and to me) that cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds’ nests for other mama birds to take care of them. Who knew?

They got to see and examine lots of bugs, from crickets to butterflies to ticks (ew).

I love the stuff my kids learn when we go outside, especially in the country.

I spend a lot of time preparing the things I teach them in our little home preschool. I comb for books and printable activities for them to do. I search Pinterest for art projects to fit with each theme we do. I laminate, I cut, I glue and velcro and stick magnets on.

But nothing compares, nothing comes even close, to the richness of nature’s classroom for providing learning and growth for my kids. And for me.

Perusing a Wedding Album with Preschoolers

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Amy

A few days ago I got out the photo album from my husband’s and my wedding and looked through it with the girls.

It was our wedding anniversary, and I was trying to explain what an “anniversary” is. I got out the book and told them that the pictures were from Mommy and Daddy’s wedding, which was five years ago.

They really got a kick out of the photos. It was fun for them to see pictures of so many family members in one book. They pointed and exclaimed and excitedly named lots of people, including their Great-Grandma S (who would have turned 93 today, by the way).

In the photo below Miss is pointing to my Dad saying, “Look, there’s Grandpa!”

They asked lots of questions about my “married dress” and what we were doing in the photos.

Miss wanted to know why our noses were smushed in the photo of us kissing.

It was fun for me to look at the photos and to talk with the girls about the pics and the day.

They asked me, “Why did you marry Daddy?”

“Because I love him very much,” I said.

I think it’s important for them to see and always know how much their Dad and Mom love each other.

Dear Daughters – The First in a Series of Letters: Your Dad

Posted on February 6, 2013February 7, 2013 by Amy

Something that I have set as a goal for myself to do this year is to take photos of all the family heirloom pieces I have in my possession and write captions for them, including available information about to whom they belonged, how they came to me, and memories I may have of them. I want to create a photo album with this information so that my girls will always know the stories behind the priceless family items we have in our home.

In thinking about this goal, it occurred to me that, while I want my girls to know about the family heirlooms they see on a daily basis in our house so that they will always appreciate them and feel some connection to the past, more important is for them to know about the people from whom these items came. I want them to know about their family members. I want them to have some understanding of the people who helped to make me who I am today. The people who have been important to their Dad. The people whose blood they share whom they may never have a chance to meet or may not remember. I want them to know the stories behind people they see and interact with frequently as well.

So the idea for this series of posts was born.

My plan is to write letters to my children about their family members, and maybe even a few important events. I intend to make this a family history in letters. I don’t necessarily think I’ll get this done in the next year. It may take several years, in fact. And that’s okay. I’m in no rush.

I know these letters will be somewhat flawed in that they will primarily tell stories from my perspective. I will ask for input often. It will be a work in progress. I’ll just see how it goes.

The natural starting point for this project, to my mind, is to tell my girls about their Dad. So here goes.

****

Dear Daughters,

I want to tell you some things about your Dad.

I certainly don’t know everything about him, as he lived for 27 years before even meeting me, but after 11 years I think I’ve got a pretty good understanding of who he is and what makes him tick.

I know that he’s funny and silly and confident.

I know that he’s loving and devoted.

I know that he’s wicked smart and incredibly handy. If he sets his mind to do something, he does it. If he doesn’t know how, he teaches himself.

Truly, he’s the smartest person I know.

(The photo above is of him building your swing set, by the way. It was about six thousand degrees that day. Handy, yes. Devoted, yes.)

I know that he works hard. He does not know how to quit.

His senior year of high school, he won a state wrestling title. He was just the second person from his high school to do so, and the first in 19 years. He worked excruciatingly hard to achieve this goal, because failure just was not considered a possibility.

The first time he applied to graduate school he didn’t get in. Instead of accepting rejection and changing his path, he worked harder to make a second try of it. He spent a year taking additional classes in order to obtain a second bachelor’s degree. He walked on to the University of Iowa’s wrestling team, and got a varsity letter in wrestling. He didn’t take “No” for an answer.

He does not back down from a challenge.

He is a natural leader. During the course of his training his peers voted for him to hold a leadership position. He gets things done. He treats people with respect and dignity.

He works hard and plays hard.

He loves to fish and hunt and golf.

He loves to spend time with his girls.

He is a good teacher. You will learn so much from him.

You have so many wonderful qualities that you get from him. Determination. Strength. Intelligence. Loyalty. Perseverance.

Your Dad will protect you, and he will push you to be the very best you can be. You will see him pushing himself right along with you.

You will succeed at whatever goals you set for yourself in life, in part because you have his smarts and his wit and his bull-headed refusal to accept “No.” Be thankful for these.

More importantly, you have his love and his support. And he is rock solid. I know this very well, as he is my foundation too. In him you will always have a strong base from which to build and a soft place to land when necessary.

Truly, the best decision I ever made was in choosing him to be my partner for life and the father to my children. He is my best friend. And he gave me you, for which I am thankful every day. Your Dad loves you fiercely, and I hope you never forget that or take it for granted.

You come from strength.

All my love,

Mom

Christmas is Love

Posted on December 24, 2012December 24, 2012 by Amy

Our elf, Christopher Pop-In-Kins, left our house last night, leaving behind a note and the movie, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” I told the girls they could watch their new movie after baths, just before getting ready for Santa and going to bed.

They were anxiously awaiting baths all day!

To kill some time before naps this afternoon, they helped Daddy make sausage, while rocking out to some Christmas music.

Today we avoided Rudolph, but they love to dance to the Charlie Brown theme song (to my chagrin they like my husband’s favorite Christmas music better than my Johnny Mathis Christmas… for now anyway).

They helped their Dad start to make brats before heading up for naps, all the while asking how much longer until baths and movie.

Finally, after naps, after dinner, after baths, they got to settle in with milk and cookies on fancy plates to watch their new movie.

My favorite part of the day came after the movie. We got treats together for Santa and his reindeer.

The girls dictated a precious “Thank you” note and signed their own names.

The very best time tonight was story time. We snuggled in to read many, many of our Christmas books tonight. Of course we started with “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” but followed that with several more favorites.

I think I was as excited as they were when I put them to bed.

And then of course, there was this:

The bane of all parents of little girls on Christmas Eve – The Dollhouse.

Oh, but what a dollhouse!

It will be the perfect home for the “Big Snow Whites” that my girls have been asking for for over a month now. The ladies are in the stockings just waiting to bring joy to my two eldest girls in the morning. Baby Sis’s stocking holds Prince Charming 🙂

I can’t wait for the morning.

I had a hard time thinking of anything I wanted for myself this Christmas. Truly, there isn’t much that is material in nature that I want or need.

I have three beautiful, healthy children and a truly wonderful, amazing husband. Tomorrow I hope to see their faces light with joy when they open their gifts.

More than that, I hope all year to give them my love in such a way that they always know it, can see it, can feel it no matter what. To me, Christmas is about love and family. We’ve got that.

In the morning we will open plenty of presents. We will have gift wrap flying everywhere. We will have little girls oohing and aaahing and probably squealing a bit over their gifts. We will have a traditional breakfast and stay in pajamas all morning. We will play and probably watch a Christmas movie or two. We might listen to Rudolph or other Christmas music.

We will have all of these things. But most of all, we will will have lots of love. Everything else is just gravy.

May you have a Christmas filled with love.

Rudolph on Repeat

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Amy

The holiday spirit is in full swing around here. Last night Daddy (aka Santa) helped me wrap the rest of the presents and get them under the tree. The girls inspected them closely this morning and eagerly asked about each one. They are excited about Santa coming tomorrow night.

Today was a day for playing Christmas music and making treats in the kitchen. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was on repeat, at Lass’s request, and we made cookies for Santa.

As Rudolph played in the background (for quite a while Lass was insistent we listen to nothing but that, but after a while I snuck in some Charlie Brown Christmas and we were all able to move on), the girls got warmed up with the rolling pin.

They had fun spreading out the flour and then got down to business.

After a few rounds they really got into trying to pound the dough flat before rolling it.

Santa is going to be very pleased. Especially since Miss says we need to leave chocolate milk for him to have with his cookies.

And speaking of Santa being pleased, he was very happy, as were we all, with the fresh (and huge) ham he cooked for our dinner tonight. He cooked the other ham from our hog at my parent’s house last week and was a bit disappointed by how it turned out. The flavor was wonderful, but the meat was dry.

Today he nailed it.

The house was filled with mouth-watering smells all day and the finished product did not disappoint.

We’ll be eating ham for Christmas dinner, and I have plans to use the bone to make a yummy ham and vegetable soup later in the week. I’m happy that we won’t need to be in the kitchen all day to make dinner on Christmas. I’ll cook some Brussels sprouts with bacon and sauté some fennel bulb and the meal will be complete.

We can spend Christmas day as it should be spent. Snuggling and laughing and playing sister games (though I will spend a little bit of time in the kitchen in the morning, after opening presents, cooking our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of creamed eggs).

We’ll probably play Rudolph a few more times too.

Merry Christmas.

Making Snowmen – Sometimes You Need to Improvise

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Amy

The girls got their wish to play in the snow today.

They had so much fun tromping through the snow, making tracks and exploring.

Lass was a bit unsteady at first and had a hard time getting up when she fell down.

After a bit she was more stable and keeping up with her sister fairly well.

Daddy made them a little snow fort.

I think they could’ve stayed out there all day. After an hour and a half or so I coaxed them inside with hot chocolate and lunch.

We read the book “The Snowy Day” at nap time, and Miss realized that they had “forgotten” to build a snowman while they were outside. She was disappointed about this (and that she hadn’t gotten a stick with which to whack a snow-covered tree).

They had been having so much fun, they really did forget, though my husband and I didn’t. I was excited to see them build a snowman and outfit it with some fun accessories, but the snow would not pack well enough to do so today.

But, their Advent calendar activity for the day was to “Make a Snowman,” so I improvised. While they were napping I remembered this ornament craft that my Mom mentioned to me the other day and that I’ve glimpsed on Pinterest. I grabbed three vintage blue ornaments off my tree, some white finger paint, and some paint pens, and we made it happen.

I painted their hands, placed the ornaments in their hands and had them press their fingers on them, and then added the rest with paint pens. Snowmen made.

Miss agreed that tomorrow we need to read “The Snowy Day” before they go outside, so she won’t forget again to do any important snow activities.

Daddy’s Birthday

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Amy

Friday was my husband’s birthday.

I love his birthday.

I so enjoy the feeling of doing nice things for the one I love.

We were on vacation, so I got up with the girls and let him sleep in (which he did for me many times during the week). I made him coffee and breakfast.

He went to the archery range to shoot with my Dad and when they came back we sang “Happy Birthday” and had brownies and ice cream.

After I put Sis to bed the older girls watched movies with my Mom and Dad and my hubby and I went out to dinner.

It was delightful.

My favorite part of the day, however, was when he opened his presents.

Just like last year, I took the girls to the Dollar Tree and gave them each $5 to pick five presents for their Daddy.

Last year, Miss didn’t quite get the concept of buying something that someone else would like.

This year, Lass was pretty much at that same place with her shopping.

She chose for him a green vase, a box of tea (the girls love to help him make tea in the evenings after dinner), a package of chip clips, a bottle of gas treatment, and a package of disposable styrofoam bowls. We were cracking up as she pulled each item out of the purple polka-dotted gift bag she also selected specially for her Daddy.

Miss, on the other hand, was very serious this year about getting what she thought her Daddy would like. She was thoughtful as we walked through each aisle of the dollar store. She scanned the shelves looking for just the right things.

She chose a box of tea and vase for him as well, though she picked an orange vase because orange is her Dad’s favorite color. She got a box of crayons because her Daddy likes to color with her. A small sprig of holiday greenery caught her eye, and she got it for him because it had a drum nestled in it. Her Daddy loves music. And finally, she selected an orange flashlight for him.

In the photo below, she is explaining to him that she got the flashlight “in case [he goes] out hunting at night.”

I know my husband loves seeing the things the girls pick out for him.

I think it’s almost as much fun for me to get to go shopping with them and see how they choose their gifts. I just love the way they think.

This is one of my favorite birthday traditions.

Priceless.

Move Over Katniss

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Amy

This girl is fierce.

She has always been into shooting the bow with her Daddy. Now, thanks to a friend of my Dad’s who thoughtfully made this little bow for her, she has one of her own.

Watch out world.

From the bow to the camo pants, Miss is her Daddy’s girl, through and through.

I think this one is going to be able to take care of herself.

Both of my older girls had fun tonight hunting the “bear” – Grandpa – while he was cooking dinner.

Daddy provided instruction.

Lass was a bit less ferocious about it.

In fact, when the girls decided that I was another bear and began to “shoot” at me, Lass seemed a bit uncomfortable with my feigned injury at being shot with an arrow.

While her sister walked up and pretended to yank the arrow out of my belly, Lass said, “It’s okay Bear, it’s a good owie” and “Don’t worry Bear, I kiss you owie. Now you all bettah.”

It’s hard to predict, but my middle girl might be a little bit less interested in hunting with her Dad in years to come.