This day in the Summer of 1996, Dan and I exchanged vows in a beautiful garden ceremony surrounded by our loved ones. It was the first of the days I call "The best days of my life" because it was overflowing with raw emotion. Several other days on that list, four to be exact, involved the birth of my precious children, for which this day, ten years ago, was the beginning of that story. But let's go back even further...
Our story began on a dark midnight in Spring of 1994; a diverse group of college dorm students ventured out into a grassy expanse occupied by a children's athletic arena. (It was actually just a playground, but that does not sound as romantic!) Our adventure was called "Midnight in the Park," a dorm social event meant to get students out of their rooms and mixing with other crazy people having nothing better to do! My excuse was I did not own a car and suffered from cabin fever! Dan's was that he roomed with the hall council member who sponsored the event. Yes, Dan was on the hall council. We were both nerds in our own way, but we were social nerds!! (We both eventually became RAs, the ultimate social nerd, but I digress, as usual.)
As I stared into the thousands of dewy grass leaves, flashlight fixed against my forehead, he observed my peculiar behavior from afar. "Why does this girl have a flashlight on her forehead?" he thought. He was intrigued and compelled to learn more about her. He had seen her before, around the dorm, and thought she was cute. He remembered her from his door to door travels as the girl who brought oodles of pennies back from her visit home, just like she said she would, for the dorm's penny drive. (Truth be told, I might have been flirting a bit with him when it came to those silly pennies. Do you think I was trying to buy his love?) Flanked by his pals, Dan crossed the space between his group and hers, leaving the comfort of his swing set and pursuing the object of his favor.
Embarrassed, my friend and I explained that we were in search of spiders. She mentioned learning in girl scouts that if you place a flashlight against your forehead, like a third eye, and peer into the grass that spiders' eyes glow red. I still am not certain of the validity of this claim, but it did snag me a husband - so who cares!?! From then on, Dan pursued me in a slow and calculated manner; he must have paid attention in preschool for he took note of the moral of the fable "The Tortoise and the Hare": slow and steady wins the race! After a few days of reconnaissance, gathering all the information he could about me from his friends and acquaintances (you know, Does she have a boyfriend? Is she a whack job? - those sorts of important facts fundamental when considering a potential soul mate), we began the grueling, albeit enjoyable, week long interview process during which we spent our nights staying up until the crack of dawn, barely making it to classes, because we could not stop finding things to talk about. We shared stories and musings, we laughed, we cried, and began falling in love. Oh, and he finally asked me out on our first official date!
I was already hooked, and I think he was also. So I cannot imagine why he was so nervous when he asked me out that first time. He had to know I would say yes. I will never forget the way his eyebrows were trembling as he asked me for a date. He took me to the Jolly Fox, a local tavern in Huntsville where they have pool, beer and country western dancing, but before that, he had to teach me to dance. I fell in love with Dan that day, in those moments when he whisked me around his dorm room floor to the tunes of Garth Brooks and held me close in his arms. I still love to be in his arms, and I believe I always will. As he taught me to two-step, his eyebrows were trembling once again, giving away that he was possibly having the same feelings of affection for me. Why else would he be so nervous? I enjoyed our date and the dancing, but it was not nearly as intimate as those first dances we shared in his room. Our date ended with our first kisses, and I knew in my heart that I was in the arms of the man I would marry (provided he asked!)
On December 31, 1994, at my best friend's wedding, Dan proposed marriage with a beautiful verse he had written just for me whilst his eyebrows trembled as if in suspense of my answer. He had to know I would say yes! We danced to "I Swear" by John Michael Montgomery on the reception dance floor, just like that dorm room floor where he danced his way into my heart. On this night, he danced his way into my future. Giddy and intoxicated with joy for the rest of the evening, we rang in the new year with hopes and dreams of our life together.
On July 27, 1996, as we recited our vows to one another underneath a vast chapel of blue skies and pillowy white clouds, I gazed affectionately into Dan's hazel eyes and witnessed, for the last time since, his eyebrows trembling with anticipation as we professed our forever love and devotion to each other. He had to know I would say yes!!! And I did. And he did. And we still do...
I love you, Dan! Happy Anniversary! Love always, Carrie
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Time warp to 1994...
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Here we are in one of the 1st pictures taken of us together (our first was probably the one taken of us together before we left to see Phantom of the Opera at Jones Hall in Houston while I was on a 40 hour break from my job as counselor at Camp El Tesoro; I can't find it!) - It's August 1994 at my Nanny & PePa's place on Lake Livingston. That's Dan's car in the back:
And this is one of my favorite pictures of us together while we were dating, taken in the Fall of 1994. We're sitting in the "Little Seattle" fountain at SHSU outside the residence hall where we met, Smith Hall (where Dan would later be an RA). This is where it all began...
