Happy 11th Meetaversary to Us

(Scary photo showing us on one of our early dates.  Excuse my terrible hair and dorky glasses, Brent’s cute as ever, but that’s just Brent !  This had to be somewhere in March-ish… I think we were engaged at that point… well, we were at least at the “holding hands point”… hahaha!)

Today is an AWESOME day in our little family!   Today, January 30, 2010, marks the  11th anniversary of the day I met Brent and coincidentally our first date.     Way back in 1998 I had asked my little sister, Elizabeth, to see about setting me up on a blind date… I just wanted to go out with someone NEW and someone not in my current circle of friends and I didn’t want to meet anyone at a bar (cuz in the first place, I didn’t drink and it would have been silly) or online.  (Been there, done that – with the online part that is…)  So she decided that this crazy guy she worked with  in the finance dept, and who shot paperclips and rubber bands at her over the cubicles, would be perfect to set me up with.  So she gave him my phone number and told him to call me after he gave her a ride to the airport at Christmas time.  LOL…. 

A month later I got a phone call.  It was kind of short and to the point.  But that’s just Brent.  He doesn’t waste words. When you ask my three year old niece and nephew “what does the dog say?” they say “woof”.  When you ask them “what does the cat say?” they say “meow”.   When you ask them “what does Uncle Brent say?”, they say “not veeerrrrrry muuuuuch!!” in their cute little sing songy voices and then grin at you.

Brent:   “Hi, this is Brent, your sister gave me your phone number.  Would you like to go out on Saturday?”

Me:  “Sure!”

Brent:  “Well, we could do a double date with two of my friends.  How about I pick you up at 6:00?”

Me:  “Sure!"

Brent: “Ok, see you then. Bye!” <click>

I think he was nervous… or he wasn’t sure what to think.

So he came and picked me up at my apartment that Saturday and I piled in his little green Ford Escort with his friends and we headed out on our adventure.    He took me to Ottavio’s Italian Ristorante in Provo and we enjoyed a delightful Italian dinner.  I think I ordered a small Margherita pizza (very authentic and non-alcoholic, btw, haha) and I don’t remember what anyone else had because I was too busy trying not to slurp red sauce laden cheese strings on my face and clothing.    I think the dinner was a little quiet.  Thank goodness for his friends (Andy Adcock and Jessica Barker) who were the siblings of Brent’s two friends, Art Adcock and Lisa Barker Adcock, who subsequently became two of MY friends, too.   (Andy and Jessica married other people later down the road…) 

After dinner we drove up to Salt Lake City to the Hansen Planetarium (which is now the Clarke Planetarium at the Gateway Plaza in SLC) and Brent surprised me with a U2 Laser Light Show.  I think we had discussed at dinner that I liked U2 music.   I LOVE star shows and laser light shows and U2… and when you combine them all it’s a recipe for fun.   The seats in the theater leaned back and I just remember laying in my seat rocking out and singing along at the top of my lungs….  Brent was awfully quiet, but still singing along, just not belting it out like me.  Somewhere during the show I thought I was probably going to scare him off with my lyric belting but I was having so much fun I didn’t care… tee hee!  Turns out that he thought it was cool that I was just being myself and having a good time. :) :) big cheesey grins :) :)

He dropped me off that night and I shook his hand (what a dork I was) and told him I had a GREAT time and “let’s do it again sometime!”.   I truly did have a great time.  There was no weird and awkward nervousness like other dates.  I just felt like I could be me.

So that night I made him a thank you card for the date…. It was my first venture into “crafty card making” as an “adult”.. hahaha.  I took a black piece of CONSTRUCTION paper and cut it out to a standard card size, then cut out some construction paper planets and glued them to the front of the card and took some liquid white-out and put little star dots all over it with a toothpick.  On the inside I cut out a comet from cream colored construction paper and then colored the tail to look like flames… again more planets and white out stars.   The giant comet was where I wrote the thank you note,

“Thanks for the great time on Saturnight… I really enjoyed it and hope we can do it again sometime soon.”

Yes, I wrote Saturnight…. it was not intentional.  It was a brain fart, and I didn’t notice it until Brent pointed it out later…. LOL!  I am such a dork.  Anyway, I tucked it in a little ziplock sandwich bag and Liz put it on the windshield of his car on Monday at work.  I have the card around here somewhere but we just searched for it and I can’t find my bin that has “destination scrapbook” loot in it.  I will find it and post a pic. :)

He called me back the next week for a second date.

I was recovering from being horribly sick.  I told him, “how bout a raincheck?”

Then my roommate freaked on me for saying that…

And I called him back, “But I’m not too sick if you want to come over and hang out.  I just don’t feel good enough to go out on the town.”

And he came over and we sat on my couch talking for HOURS and HOURS into the wee morning hours.

 

 

And the rest, as they say, is history…

~Inky Smiles!

PS – we’re off to eat some Italian food and go to a laser light show in Salt Lake!  :) :) :)