Day 24 •• Okinawa Photographer •• Photo-A-Day Challenge

Better late than never…. Day 24 is a special day for me. It is my 8 year wedding anniversary.That’s right 8 years ago on October 5, 2002 I married my wonderful husband. We started off with all odds against us. You see I was 17 years old and he was 20 years old. We had bets(unknown to us) placed upon how long our marriage would last. The maximum “bet” that we found out that was placed was 2 years. As you can see we have lasted much longer than that. Another thing against us besides our age was that he was in the military and was soon to be deployed for the war in Iraq.
A little dating history for us. We met in November of 2001 ( ages 16 & 19) and we started “dating” in December even though he resided in California and I in Utah. He visited Utah in December for a few short weeks and then in January was deployed to Okinawa for 6-7months. During that time we talked and emailed and wrote letters. Through those interactions we found that we loved each other. He returned from his deployment and I broke up with him because I thought he was too far away and wanted to do my own thing. I never thought marriage could be a real possibility.
About a month and a half passed and I had pretty much cut him off. One day at the end of August I was talking to a friend on the phone and heard the doorbell ring. I was quite surprised as I wasn’t expecting anyone and didn’t think my roommates were expecting anyone either. I opened the door and standing there was this dashing, handsome young man in uniform. Yes it was Dallas! I was blown away and surprised. He had come to ask me to dinner and I couldn’t deny a man in uniform. Throughout the evening he asked for another chance and was doing everything he could to convince me. He put on Aerosmith, “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” and asked me to dance in my apartment living room and said all the right things. Well you guessed it I gave him another chance! about a week later we decided to marry and 6 weeks after that we WERE married.
Four months after we were married he was deployed to Iraq for the initial push at the beginning of the war. Still 17 years old, I was scared and moved back to Utah to live near family. I was glued to the TV, worrying and wondering if my husband was okay. I didn’t hear from him for the first 2 months and finally received a piece of cardboard box in the mail. He had made his own postcard from Iraq from an MRE box. It was short and sweet and let me know he was okay and safe. The only contact we had was through letters for a while. Later on he was able to call, but the quality was bad. I didn’t care as long as I could hear his voice and know he was safe.
As you know he returned safely and here we are 7 years later, 3 duty stations different, and add (almost) four children to the mix and we are happier than we have ever been. We now joke that we didn’t marry out of love, we married out of lustWe just couldn’t stand to see each other with anyone else. We now TRULY know what love is and that we love each other deeply!
I cannot wait till he returns from this deployment. One good thing about deployments is that when he returns it’s like honeymoon stage all over again. So anyway, this year I spent our anniversary with my children and wonderful neighbors, eating our favorite restaurant and roasting marshmallows over the grill. I’d say it was quite a night. Thank you everyone for helping me enjoy this anniversary without my love. Don’t mind the poor quality in photos as I had to take pictures of photos from our engagement photos and wedding. It was still the film age back then.And below that is how I spent our 8 year anniversary!