Since our five year wedding anniversary is coming up in about two months I thought it would be fun to tell our story about how we met and fell in love.
*Warning* This is very long but a great love story and worth the read! Haha.
Around this time of year it has been seven years since we met.
It all started here at park place mall the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005.
I was working as a hostess at Metro Grill. I was already working there for about a year. Jordan was working for American Valet right outside the restaurant. He had been working there around the same amount of time as me. All of us Metro hostesses became friends with most of the "valet boys" as we called them. The valet boys would come in and chat with us hostesses when it was slow and there wasn't anything else to do.
I didn't notice Jordan until a little bit later because he was so quiet and mostly kept to himself. But once I did notice him, I guess you can say I believe in love at first sight as cheesy as it sounds. I thought he was so cute and would secretly watch him at the valet stand. I was curious about who this boy was so trying not to be too obvious I asked one of the other valet boys what this cute guys name was. Jordan? I remember thinking I never thought of him as a Jordan. lol. But what's even funnier is that when I was little my name was always Jordan when I played house.
Us hostesses were always very friendly to all the valet boys when they came in to get a drink or use the bathroom. I said hi to Jordan a few times when he came in but he was so shy and quiet he never said anything back. So I gave up and didn't say hi to him anymore when he came in. A few days later, it was slow and I was in a joking mood so when Jordan came in to use the bathroom I told him "You can't use our bathroom." I said it in a jokingly serious tone. He laughed and gave me a jokingly sarcastic look and proceeded to the bathroom. Come to find out I had to be mean to get this cute boy to talk to me. Haha. From then on he became my chatting buddy.
In some ways, working there was a little bit like high school. I decided to tell one of my hostess friends about my crush on the valet boy and she decided she was going to tell one of the other valet boys that I had a crush on him. Well, with that little game of telephone the names got mixed up and he ended up telling him a different girl had a crush on him.
My crush only got bigger after chatting with him so I started asking him when he worked next so I would know to go to work dressed up extra nice. I would get so excited to go to work whenever I knew he was working. This was back in the times when AOL instant messenger was popular. So instead of asking for my number he asked for my screen name. Pretty nerdy and ancient. Haha. I went home that night and signed on hoping he would send me a message. But nope. Then it hit me. I gave him the wrong screen name! The next time I saw him at work I told him what I did. That was on a Saturday when the mall and the restaurants were really busy so we didn't get a chance to talk much. He told me he would write down his screen name when he got a chance.
For some reason that day he was giving me extra butterflies. So much that I could barely concentrate on my difficult job of greeting people and seating them at tables. lol. I was constantly looking outside to make sure he hadn't left work yet without giving me his screen name. I even told one of the girls "What is wrong with me. I can't concentrate!" Then I saw him grab his stuff getting ready to leave. I was sure he forgot about giving me his screen name and I had no idea when we were both going to work next. I was getting pretty disappointed when I saw him walk away but then he started heading toward my direction. I walked over to the door and he handed me a little valet tag with his screen name written on it. We told each other when we worked next and went on our way. I was so excited that he remembered so I went to put the tag in my purse. I told one of the girls about it and she asked if he gave me his number. I didn't even think to look on the other side. I pulled it out of my purse and turned it around. There was his number! I was even more excited.
One of the girls convinced me to call him as soon as I got home. And if anyone knows me, I was never the kind of girl to call a guy. I always waited for the guy. But this was so different. When I got home I literally went straight to the computer to check if he was online. He wasn't so I took a deep breath and dialed his number. I don't exactly remember what we talked about but the conversation wasn't very long because he was with his brother James. He did mention that we should hang out sometime.
We chatted and worked with each other a few more times before we actually planned our first date. I still remember what I wore for our first date. A long sleeve dark blue abercrombie shirt with a long beaded blue necklace, jeans and black boots. I even wore my replica Jessica Simpson wedding ring that I just got in the mail. Haha. I was and still am obsessed with her. He came and picked me up at my house in his little white honda. He was such a gentleman, opening all the doors for me . He hasn't changed. He's still the gentleman he was on that first date. We went to dinner at the Bamboo Club right next to where we worked. The food was delicious and the conversation came so easily. It was by far the best date I had ever been on.
After dinner, we went to the theater in the mall and watched Meet The Fockers. While we were waiting for the movie to start, I was telling Jordan about my Jessica Simpson obsession and showed him my new ring. I handed it to him and he accidentally dropped it on the floor in the dark movie theater. I could tell he felt so bad but I really wasn't worried about it at all. He searched for it on the floor and found it and apologized. He probably thought that was the end of us. Haha.
But it definitely wasn't. We were inseparable from that first date on. We saw each other every day even though we lived about 40 minutes away from each other. January 14th rolled around. We were hanging out at my house and started having a deep discussion about our relationship. That's when he asked me to be his girlfriend officially. But I was hesitant at first. Not because I didn't want to be with him. It was because I was recently getting out of a long on and off two year relationship with somebody that was no good for me. He also recently got out of a relationship with someone who completely took him for granted. My past relationship issues made me scared to get into another one. But I decided to go for it and give it a try so I said yes.
It was about three months into our relationship that we knew this was for real. We knew we loved each other and said it. We even started talking about marriage. I knew he was the one and had no doubts about it.
Dating Jordan made me realize what a real relationship was supposed to be like. We never fought, we never broke up, we never questioned our love for each other and we were completely open about everything. We weren't hiding anything. This was all completely opposite from my last relationship.
Our one year anniversary was rolling around on January 14th, 2006. Jordan had a whole day planned out for us. I made him a scrapbook of each month of our first year. We started our day off with a romantic picnic lunch at the top of Mt. Lemmon. I wasn't paying attention when he told me to dress warm because I wore flip flops. I was pretty cold but it was still a great lunch. After lunch we went back to his house to exchange gifts and cards and to relax for a little while. For dinner we went to a fancy restaurant called Flemings. We even got special treatment because it was our anniversary.
After dinner, we drove out to one of the casinos to see one of Jordan's favorite musicians, Jim Brickman, in concert. His music is so beautiful and romantic that it was a perfect thing to do for our anniversary. Half way through the concert Jim Brickman announced that there was someone that wanted to ask someone a question. Then he said "Is there a Jordan out there?" I didn't realized that he was asking about my Jordan until he stood up and pulled me along with him. Everything else was pretty much a blur from there. He took me up to the front, said some stuff and I was so shocked that I'm not even sure what he said. But what I do remember was he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. In front of thousands of people! Obviously I said yes! We sat back down and all I could do was stare at the big sparkly ring on my finger. After the concert we felt like celebrities. Everywhere we went everyone was saying congratulations.
Exactly a year to the day, we got married. Everyone always says the first year of marriage is always the hardest. But honestly we're still waiting for our hard part. We've definitely been through a lot but has never been between us. The troubles we have gone through have always been about things happening around us. And we are so lucky to have each other to lean on to get through those tough moments. They have only made us stronger as a couple.
And now we are so blessed to be a family of four. (Can't forget about Penny) I'm looking forward to our future because it only keeps getting better. I'm especially looking forward to our five year anniversary because of special blessings that we are going to able to share with each other by going to the Temple and being sealed for all time and eternity.
The Christmas Eve tradition is for Heather to make everyone jammies. Here is a picture of them last year. I can't believe how tiny she was a year ago! So much can change in a year.
This years jammies were so cute! Jessalyn got her own little nightgown.
She looked so adorable waddling around in her new jammies. Thanks Aunt Heather!
Since this is our first official Christmas together, we need to start making our own traditions. So one tradition we started is to all get some comfy pants on Christmas Eve. It was my idea. It's really just an excuse to add to my Aero comfy pants obsession. Haha!
Jordan was acting surprised even though he totally knew what it was. Doesn't he look pretty awesome in his matching Christmas eve jammies from Heather!
Yay! I love my new comfy pants!
We even set the mood by listening to some Christmas music and Jessalyn waddled around playing with all the ornaments and walking back and forth around the living room and dining room. Luckily she really hasn't attempted to take anything off the tree yet. She was just touching the ornaments that she could reach.
