Five

Five years ago today, we embarked on the best journey. It hasn't been the easiest journey. We certainly have our differences. But those differences make us more compatible and keep our lives interesting. I am so thankful for the journey that led us to where we are today.

There are a million things I love about Troy, but I'll narrow the list down to ten.

1. He is a hard worker. He could have chosen a career where he wouldn't have had to work as many hours or travel as much. But he willingly sacrifices his time and abilities so that I can stay home and take care of our children. He never complains when his alarm clock goes off in the wee hours of the morning. He goes above and beyond in his work responsibilities. I never have to worry about him slacking off or not providing for us. He carries his work ethic into his church responsibilities as well, which I admire.

2. He has really beautiful ice blue eyes. He passed that trait on to our children which I love him even more for.

3. He is intelligent. He can ace written tests with ease and he seems to know something about every subject. The wheels are constantly turning in his head (usually with numbers). He always knows what is going on in world news and politics and sports. If I ever have a question about those things, he can give me answer off the top of his head.

4. He can talk and connect with anyone. It doesn't matter who they are or what differences they have; Troy can always find common ground. He can push past the awkward chitchat and discover the essence of the other person and what makes him or her tick. He is the best sidekick to have when meeting new people (especially because I am much more shy).

5. He won't admit it, but he has a really good voice. I like sitting next to him at church and hearing him nail the tenor line of any hymn.

6. He can calm me down. I tend to overreact when things don't go as planned, and he always brings perspective into those situations. Also, to this day, I cannot get poked with a needle without him holding my hand. He looks into my eyes and calmly talks to distract me. He is the only one that has ever been able to help me with my extreme aversion to needles.

7. He insists that I have some time away from my duties at home. He takes over so that I can go grocery shopping without the boys or go to a yoga class or have a girls' night. He knows that giving me time away replenishes and fulfills me. He is also always suggesting that I take a trip to Arizona or Michigan with the boys, even if he can't come along.

8. Troy makes me laugh. He does the funniest hillbilly impersonation. He is really quick-witted and is always coming up with funny one-liners.

9. He is a great father. Not because he has loads of patience or dedicates every spare moment to our children, but because he adores them in a way that only a father could, and the boys adore him right back.

10. He is my best friend. We can still talk for hours (if we aren't exhausted). No one understands me like he does. I can go from giddiness to drama in a matter of seconds and he still loves me. He listens to what I have to say even if it means hearing the mundane details of day to day happenings. 

I am so thankful that a million different little decisions led us to meet, to date, to marry, and to work together and support each other for eternity. Happy Anniversary!

Phrases

In honor of our five years together, here are five phrases that I hear most often from Troy:

1. Literally. This is Troy's favorite adverb. It is his go to word that denotes emphasis. For example, "It is literally going to rain every day next week." Or, "I am literally five minutes away." I'd estimate that in a typical phone conversation, he uses the word literally about four times.

2. I did the math. Most of the time when Troy is looking off into the distance, he is crunching numbers in his head. Percentages. Housing prices. Product estimates. Company valuations. He often spends his entire commute calculating stock price scenarios. He'll come in the door and state, "I did the math, and if we had invested $__ in the _______ stock six months ago, we would have  $__ now!" He is always kicking himself for not being a psychic on the stock market trends.

3. To put it in perspective. This phrase goes hand in hand with the last one. He is always putting dollar amounts into perspective for those less analytically minded like me. Here's a double whammy that he said to me recently:

"Did you know that our nation's deficit grew from 10 trillion to 14.4 trillion dollars? I did the math and that is the equivalent of every person in the entire population owing $45,000 to get the nation out of debt. To put it in perspective, just in our family of four alone, we would owe $180,000."

This is the type of thing that keeps him up at night.

4. Your mom. This has nothing to do with my actual mom. Troy has been dishing out "your mom" jokes for a few years running. Basically, whenever I make a obvious factual statement, he responds with a "your mom" joke. Case in point:

Lindsey: This is a windy road.

Troy: Your mom is a windy road.

Lindsey: Your lunch is in the fridge.

Troy: Your mom is in the fridge.

Lindsey: This is a long movie.

Troy: Your mom is a long movie.

I really thought this one would die off, but Troy still thinks that each and every "your mom" joke is just as funny as it was two years ago.

5. Love. Troy shows his love for me in many ways, but it is always nice to hear him say "I love you." A few years ago, we somehow shortened those three words down to a simple "love." Whenever we separate or before we hang up the phone, Troy reminds me that there is love.

I asked Troy to name some of the phrases that I say the most. This is what he said:

1. Look what your son did! I always want someone to acknowledge the impressive things that our sons are doing. Of course, the second I call attention to them, they stop doing their tricks. Troy usually glances and then goes back to whatever he was doing. Once he turns his back, the trick is usually repeated. I reply, "You missed it! Look what your son did!" It's a vicious cycle.

2. Let me grab my camera. In my defense, I didn't always take as many pictures as I do now. I only have nine pictures from our honeymoon. The events that must be photographed have just increased through the years. Troy is a good sport for the most part about my hobby.

3. Lame-o. This is my go to word to describe anything that is disappointing. For example. "You're going inside already? You're such a lame-o!" Or, when I am losing a game, I exclaim, "Lame-o!"

4. We did so many arm balances. I really don't say this very often, but I had just come home from yoga when I asked him to name some phrases. Troy realized that I judge the success of a yoga class by how many difficult poses are thrown into the mix. I consider a class to be really good if several arm balances are included. That is completely not what yoga is about, but I like being challenged.

5. Love.

Top Ten Highlights

There have been a lot of highlights in our five years of marriage. Here are our top ten (in no particular order):

1. Honeymooning in Mexico.

2. Graduating from college. I like that I was able to support Troy through two more years of school and contribute as the breadwinner for a short time.

3. Preparing for our family to expand. 

4. Bringing two beautiful sons into the world.

5. Starting our careers. Mine was short-lived because I started the most fulfilling career; motherhood.

6. Buying our first home. We're still trying to decide if that was a highlight in the current market.

7. Spending holidays together, even if Troy is a scrooge.

8. Going on vacations. Most of our trips have revolved around visiting our out-of-state family, but we consider those vacations nonetheless.

Arizona

Mackinac Island, Michigan

St. Petersburg, Russia

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

9. Going on dates. Now that we have children, we make a constant effort to have a weekly date night. It doesn't always happen, but we really value our time alone where we can be "us" and not just mommy and daddy.

10. Living every day moments. Despite all of the other big highlights, what I love the most is that we are building our lives together, day by day. We are learning and struggling and apologizing and forgiving and celebrating and rejoicing. We are sharing all of our moments, good or bad, with each other. That is the greatest highlight of all.

Two Years Later

After Troy and I spent our first year together, he was assigned to Riverside, California for two years to serve a mission. We both valued missionary service as one of the most important things a person could do and knew that it would strengthen our future relationship regardless of the time we spent apart.

Those two years were the hardest of my life. We both wish now that we would have broken up so that we could have focused on our individual lives. At the same time, we are certainly happy with the way things turned out in the end and we are stronger because of those hardships. We diligently supported each other from across the country through detailed weekly letters. Even though I became impatient at times, those letters became the backbone of my life.

When Troy came home after 24 months of service, he transferred to BYU's business school. I still had one semester to finish up at Michigan State, so we spent the first four months apart. Our relationship began slowly with phone calls and a few weekend visits. Troy was rightfully hesitant to jump into a committed relationship because he hadn't dated anyone for two years. I was more eager to continue where we had left off because I had found that no one quite measured up to him.

I flew out to visit him a couple times and although our future was blurry, one thing was certain. We still had a lot of fun together.

After a few months, we were talking on the phone several hours every day. Troy came out to visit me just before I graduated. I planned a romantic date and sang to him. We decided that I should secure my internship near BYU so that we could be together.

I moved to Utah and our relationship grew slow and steady.

One thing that helped launch our relationship forward was visiting California with Troy and his parents. I was really shy around his family (who lived in Boston) up to that point, and it was important to become comfortable around them. Spending several days with them allowed me to feel like I was part of his wonderful family. So much that I didn't even mind doing our Little Mermaid pose in front of them.

Finally, after a few more months (I know, I'm dramatic for thinking that was a long time), Troy and I decided that we could simply not be apart. We wanted to be a family. He proposed to me (story here) and we began the best chapter of our lives.

How We Met

At the end of this week, Troy and I will be celebrating our five year anniversary. Five years is not much in the grand scheme of things, but we decided to kick things up a notch anyway (more on that later). 

To lead up to our anniversary, I am dedicating this whole week of blog posts to the two of us. A few people have recently requested stories about how we met and how this little family of ours began. So, to kick off the week, here is how we met many years ago:

We were both freshmen at Michigan State University. I did not want to be there by a long shot. I longed for home and for high school and for anything familiar. I had no interest in settling in to my new environment. In fact, my journal entry from my first week at school reads:

"Well, I'm here at college and I hate it. I have zero friends so far and all I want to do is go home" August 23, 2002.

Troy and I lived in the same apartment complex. I met him and his roommates briefly at a few social events, but I never remembered any of their names. In fact, I thought they were pretty obnoxious at a tenant meeting we were required to attend at the beginning of the school year.

My third story apartment had a balcony, and one night, Troy and his roommates started shouting my name and throwing rocks at the sliding glass door from down below. I was surprised that they knew my name because I had mostly just been moping in my room since I had arrived at school. When I came out on the balcony, they invited me over to play Euchre. I accepted, but brought my math book because there was no way I could justify playing games without mixing in a little homework. 

One night of Euchre turned into many nights Euchre. Troy and I started making a little eye contact and I eventually learned his name. And just a few weeks into school, as the other card playing members dwindled into the night, Troy and I remained in the apartment lounge and stayed up late talking. I was surprised at how easy it was to be myself around him and how we didn't run out of things to talk about. 

There was something blatant standing between us though. I still had a boyfriend back home. And since I was so tied to my hometown, I wasn't even looking at Troy in "that way." 

One sunny afternoon, I was walking home from class and Troy spotted me from his apartment. He opened the window and through the screen shouted, "Do you want to go running with me?" (I laugh about that now because he is not a runner.) I had a conflict at the time (probably more moping) but we made plans to go running another day.

I found out later that he was on the phone with his mom at the time that he spotted me. His mom asked him if any girls had caught his eye. He said there was one girl, but she was dating someone else. His mom said she was sorry about that. Troy confidently responded, "Give me three weeks."

He may have been a little cocky, but three weeks was all it took to woo me. My boyfriend from back home conveniently broke up with me just in time for Troy to step in with his wit and charm. I was devastated about the break-up, but Troy mended that loss quite well. We became best friends almost overnight.

I was wishy-washy about our relationship for several months. I didn't want to commit to anything serious and I certainly didn't want him to be my rebound. I was 18 years old and he was planning on leaving to serve a mission for two years. Troy, however, was constant in his affection for me and patiently waited for me to make up my mind (those roles were reversed several years later, only I wasn't so patient). By the time Thanksgiving break rolled around, I realized that I was already in too deep. I missed him like crazy over that long weekend and decided to take my chances on him.

That was the beginning of something great. We went on quite the rollercoaster ride over the next few years, two of which were spent on opposite sides of the country with US mail as our only form of communication. But that is a different story for a different day. And there is obviously a happy ending. An ending that will never end.

Memories from our first year of dating are among the most cherished moments of our lives.

Records

I have never been sentimental about "stuff." All of those cute little scribblings and yarn necklaces my son brings home each week from Sunbeams go right in the trash (while he's not looking). I condensed my entire array of childhood yearbooks, awards, programs, and memorabilia down to one box. If I don't think I'll use an item again, I donate it or get rid of it. I just can't stand to have all the clutter around with the thought of having to move it from house to house over time.

But there is one thing that I couldn't bear to get rid of.

If I ever lost my records, I would be heartbroken.

In fact, a few years ago, my favorite Christmas present was a fire and flood proof safe to store my journals and external hard drives full of digital files. If our house ever burns to the ground or fills with water, I want those records to be protected! The safe is already filled to the brim with my personal journal arsenal.

I am passionate about keeping records. Once a thought or idea or memory is in writing, I feel such a sense of relief. I don't have to keep it in the forefront of my mind anymore, worried that it will slip into never-never land and be forgotten forever.

There have been so many times that I have wished that I could read journals that don't exist from my great grandparents. To read about their opinions and fears and joy and trials. To know of the memories that filled that dash I see on family history records in between their birth dates and death dates.

I want to be sure that there is a record of my life and my posterity beyond birth dates and death dates. I want to be able to look back on the good and the bad and have all of the important (and not-so-important) events documented.

Therefore, I am a record keeper. I am so thankful to have my memories in writing (at least most of them...some make me roll my eyes).

At the top of my list of records to be preserved are the two humongous binders chock full of every letter Troy and I wrote to each other while he was on his mission.

Yes, we used to be really cheesy. After five years of marriage, we certainly aren't as sappy as we used to be. Some of the love-sick things we used to write to each other make me pretty embarrassed now. But one of my favorite things about Troy's weekly letters was how he addressed his envelopes. He never wrote my actual name. He always came up with a creative (and sometimes embarrassing) title. I treasure each and every one of those address labels.

I hope that someday our children and grandchildren will enjoy reading about our courtship and how we grew closer letter by letter.

I keep records in a few different ways now. Everything has gone digital, and I don't live in the dinosaur era, but sometimes I still like creating with actual prints. I have a Christmas scrapbook that I add a few pages to each year, including our family Christmas card. The album is always fun to pull out and look at how much we have changed and grown from Christmas to Christmas.

Then, I have scrapbooks for each of the boys. They only document from birth to one year old. I feel like realistically, the first year of life is about all I will be able to keep up with for each child in scrapbook format.  Nash's book is already about half as thick as Blake's. But, it is complete, and I am satisfied that his life thus far is documented.

Especially since I started his book two weeks before his first birthday. I brought my supplies to Arizona and created layouts with my favorite crafting buddy (who happens to have many more supplies on hand than I do). The dining room turned into our project room for the week.

The nice thing about how I did the boys' books is, sometimes, I created full 12x12 pages, but often, I just slid pictures into 4x6 slots and called it good. The most important parts to me are the journaling clips on each page.

I am so happy to have Nash's book complete. I enjoyed using my scissors and paper cutter for layouts even if everything has gone digital. I enjoy digital design as well, but sometimes, I just need to take a break from my monitor and work with my hands.

Since I determined that the cut off for scrapbook documentation is age one, I continued Blake's records with a blog of "Blakeisms" where I record the funny things he says from time to time. Eventually I'll have a blog of Nashisms when he starts talking as well.

Then, of course, there is this blog where I keep the most updated records. I am slightly paranoid about my blog accidentally being erased one day or Google crashing, so I import all of my posts every once and a while to a back up blog. I also have each post automatically emailed to me for back up. I'd like to have a hard copy of all of my blog posts someday, but I haven't found a program I love to turn our blog into a book. I tried using blurb a while back and gave up after a few hours because I had to reformat every page to make it readable. I feel like there will be better technology in the future for blog-to-book transfer, and I'm no rush to have it all printed out.

I love records.

May Flowers

The month of May for me means planting flowers and creating graduation slideshows. I have spent every spare minute the last couple of weeks working on DVD slideshow presentations that I create yearly for the school that I used to teach at. The slideshows are shown at graduation and contain pictures of every student throughout the school year. I enjoy working on them and being connected in a way to my teaching days, but after finishing the 15th slideshow yesterday, I was happy to turn my work efforts into caring for our yard instead of staring at a computer screen. It felt good to pull all of those overgrown weeds and plant some flowers around our tulips.

Speaking of yard work, my husband is sneaky sneaky in his efforts to do as little yard work as possible. He absolutely detests manual labor, so when we attended our church youths' auction fundraiser last weekend, he outbid everyone for any services involving mowing and snow shoveling. To my surprise, after an impeccable mowing service was rendered to us today by a teenage boy, Troy hired him to mow our lawn for the rest of the summer! I was a little peeved at first since I don't think that we need mowing services when we are in our mid-twenties. However, I think that $15 a week is probably the best money we will ever spend on improving our marriage. Our Saturdays will no longer consist of me plotting the best way to motivate Troy to mow the lawn. He will no longer be nagged and nagged and nagged when it gets to be three weeks since the previous mowing. Troy and I don't disagree about much, but my blood boils just thinking about the tension involved in the past when discussing the chore of lawn mowing. Our summer will be much happier now that I can always look out the window and see clean lines on our grass. Procrastination, guilt, and nagging will be eliminated from our conversations. I sit here taking in the sweet scent of our blooming lilac tree through the window and I feel lighter already.

Symbols of Marriage

A wedding ring is a daily symbol of commitment and loyalty to the one you love. Troy lost his ring about six months ago. I wasn't at all surprised. In fact, I was amazed that it lasted through more than three years of marriage! He took it off and played with it all the time and constantly spun it on flat surfaces. It's a good thing we're not very sentimental people because it was just a matter of time before it disappeared forever. However, after six months of appearing as if not married, I thought it was time to get him a new ring. We went on a Valentine's date the last weekend of January, which was good since we ended up having our baby a few days later. I thought it would be the perfect time to give Troy a replacement ring. I got him a very simple inexpensive ring knowing that he would probably lose that ring too. He was not very thrilled. He thought I was trying to "claim my territory." I guess that might have been part of it, but I thought that he would genuinely appreciate the thoughtfulness. I think the new ring has spent more time spinning than it has on his ring finger.

That brings me to my next story about wedding rings, or rather the lack thereof. This is a classic "You know you're at Walmart when..." story. The day before Nash was born, I went to Walmart to pick up something that I had shipped to the store. A gangly man in his mid-twenties helped me carry the item out to my car. While en route, he asked me how old Blake was. He then asked me when my baby was due. I answered both of his questions, and then in all seriousness, he asked, "Same dad?" I thought, are you kidding me? I frankly responded, "Yup." Who asks that kind of question? I mean, really? Do I look like the type of person that employs two different dads for my children within two years? He then proceeded to ask me a series of inappropriate questions about my marital status. The only credit I can give him is that I wasn't wearing my wedding ring because it gave me a rash towards the end of my pregnancy. The moral of the story is that wedding rings are apparently very important to avoid awkward conversations from strangers. Hopefully Troy can at least carry that knowledge into his use of wedding ring #2.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Golden Anniversary

Obviously it is not our 50-year golden anniversary, but if golden anniversaries were like golden birthdays, today would be ours. This June 3rd marks our 3-year anniversary. Another "3" to add to the crazy chain. It's hard to remember what it was like to not spend every day with the one who makes me laugh. I'm so grateful for our marriage. The ups, the downs, and just having someone to share everyday life with. I could gush some more, but I'll save that for another time. Here is the introduction to our wedding video that my talented brother made.

3

Exactly 3 years ago today, on 3/3, Troy asked me to marry him. Since I started this blog after we were married, I thought it would be fun to tell the proposal story. “3” happens to be a common thread amongst many dates in our lives. Troy unknowingly proposed to me on March 3rd which is the half-birthday of my September 3rd birthday. We were married exactly 3 months later on June 3rd. Beyond the crazy 3’s that run throughout many dates in our family, the story of how Troy proposed is incredibly thoughtful and memorable.

The best part of the proposal was that I had absolutely no idea that it was coming. Troy had told me a few weeks in advance that he wanted to take me on a “Utah” date. A “Utah” date is basically where the guy spends hours planning creative date night activities beyond the typical dinner and a movie. Since I knew that we were going on a special date, I wasn’t suspicious at all when things were a little more extravagant than normal. In fact, I still thought that Troy was trying to figure out if the timing was right for us to get married, so the farthest thing I expected from him was a proposal. Little did I know, this was all part of the plan. It was really important to Troy that I was surprised by the proposal, and he thought of several tricks throughout the night to completely throw me for a loop.

Our date began with a phone call from Troy, informing me that he would be late. I was a little ticked off because I knew that the reason why he was late was that he was bringing a girl from his apartment complex to the airport. I knew how long it took to get there and back, and it was clear to me that in order for him to be this late, he must have taken the girl into the airport and helped her check in. In my eyes, any college girl was completely capable of checking herself in and I selfishly thought that she was taking time away from my date. Troy kept mentioning on the phone that he “would make it up to me later.” As I sat and waited, all ready to go, I just kept getting more and more steamed that our special date was getting delayed. However, when Troy finally arrived at my door with a single long-stemmed red rose in his hand, I quickly forgot about my frustrations.

There was a note attached to the rose with a reason why he loved me. Throughout the evening, every time we got in or out of the car, he handed me another rose with another note. My collection of roses and notes kept growing underneath my feet in the car. Troy took me out to dinner at Chef’s Table, a nice restaurant that overlooked the whole valley. I was impressed by the sherbet we were served to cleanse our pallets, the gorgeous view, and the candlelit romantic atmosphere.

Troy was unusually giddy throughout the entire meal, but I still had no clue what I was in for. One of the biggest things he did to throw me off was taking me ring shopping after we ate. We had been talking about marriage so it wasn’t completely out of the blue, but since he was taking me ring shopping for the first time, there was no way I suspected in any way that he might already have a ring. We went to a few stores and shopped for a few hours, trying on different rings. Troy prefaced the ring shopping activity with the statement, “If I act weird, it is because I am still a little overwhelmed by this.” I found out later that he only said that to cover up any suspicious or nervous behaviors that he might display because he was going to propose later.

Our next stop was the bookstore. We used to go to Barnes and Noble in college when we were first dating all the time and browse the aisles together. This time, Troy had us each pick out a children’s book to read to each other. I picked out a beautiful book that happened to be about love called “You and Me.” I told Troy, “Man, if you ever propose, it’s going to be really hard to top this date!” He wholeheartedly agreed.
He then took me way up into the mountains, winding along many roads, and still kept what was next a secret. When we eventually stopped, he had me wait in the car for what seemed like forever. I re-read all of my eleven love notes while he set up. He finally came to get me and we trudged through the snow to a picnic table. He had set up tons of candles, put all of my red roses in a vase, and had a fondue pot of chocolate and several types of fruit, cake, and pretzels. I found out later that the reason why he was late picking me up was that his mom helped him prepare some of the fondue treats and he had to stop by their house after the airport to pick it all up.

We indulged in the fondue and Troy insisted that we take some pictures of our special date night. Then, he asked me to take a walk with him. You’d think by this point that I would get suspicious but I still had absolutely no idea what was coming. On the walk I was thinking that it was a little ridiculous to be freezing and tracking through all the crunchy March snow. We came to a bridge over a stream of water, and Troy stopped and handed me another rose, only this time it was white. I opened the note that was attached to the rose and as I squinted in the dark to find the print, I said, “I think this one’s blank.” Troy responded, “That’s because I’m going to tell you this one.”

I can’t remember word for word verbatim what he said at that point, but it was something to the effect of “Lindsey, I have loved writing down all of these things that I love about you, and I can’t wait to find out more things I love about you for the rest of my life.” Then, he got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. I was so shocked and surprised and excited and barely even noticed that he had pulled out a diamond ring. I jumped up and down and of course said “Yes!” as he quickly put the ring box back in his pocket so that I wouldn’t knock it into the stream. Troy said that I looked completely dumbfounded. He actually completely forgot that I would have to give him an answer to his question; he was only focusing the part that he had to say. It’s not like I would have said no though, and he knew that.

We walked back to the picnic table and Troy exclaimed, “You’re going to be my wife!” It was so surreal and so exciting. I had waited a long time to hear those words. We shared some sweet moments of gratitude, happiness, and peace confirming our decision to get married. Troy told me about the experiences that helped him to know that he wanted to marry me, he said a humble and heartfelt prayer, and then we called our parents to share the exciting news. Of course they all already knew because Troy had asked my dad’s permission to marry me earlier in the week, to which my dad responded, “I thought you’d never ask!”

Troy actually bought the ring several months before he proposed to me. He had gotten it in Israel on a trip with his family, just “in case” he would be proposing anytime in the future. I was so blown away with Troy’s preparations for this date and especially for keeping it a secret from me. He drove around the canyon all week in between classes to find the perfect place to propose, and even went to the bridge earlier in the day to scrape off the ice and snow.

3 years later, I am still incredibly in awe of my husband. The proposal was more than I could have asked for, and I have sweet memories of our engagement. Now, we just need to have some children on the 3rd’s so we can keep the tradition going.