To My Wife (p.s. I love you)

Hey everyone. I know it’s been a few days since my last post, but there has been a lot going on around here. Well, sort of. First, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been commuting to Chicago three days a week for work, so I am basically exhausted when I get home. Which makes me unable to think and be creative enough to write. Second, Lea has been sick and I have been fighting something off, so there was no chance I would be able to string a sentence together, let alone a whole blog post.

As much as I wanted to write, I couldn’t. However, I am feeling much better today and have been at home all day so I am well rested. I’ve had something I’ve wanted to write about all week and now I finally can. On Tuesday Lea and I celebrated our nine – year anniversary of being together. So today, this entire post is dedicated to my lovely wife and the many years we’ve shared together as friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, fiancé’s, and husband and wife.

Let’s flashback to 2012 – our freshman year in college at Indiana State University. I had no idea who Lea was. None at all. One night in the library two of my Sigma Chi pledge brothers walk in, and there’s a beautiful girl with them. They all say hello and continue on their way. This was the first time we met. I won’t take you through every detail of our nine – year relationship, but I will give you the highlights and some of my favorite moments.

These first two pictures were taken on New Years Eve (hours before our first kiss and all of this started) when we were just friends. It was such a fun night in Chicago with our friends!

This was on the train on the way into the city. I couldn’t tell but she liked me lol I apologize for the close up.

This is me still being oblivious to the fact that she liked me. We were all in our hotel room hanging out before we decided to go to dinner! Oh how young and stupid I was.

This was later that night at McCormick & Schmicks in Chicago! It’s our unofficial “first date”. It was a really great time! Sorry for the poor quality. I’ll blame the earlier version of the iPhones we had back then. I remember after this night we weren’t sure where we stood for a while. We were best friends and we kissed at midnight (I know it’s very cheesy & movie-like but it happened!) and we didn’t want to ruin our friendship! A few days later we decided to just start dating and see where it goes, and since then it’s been amazing! Now, our real first date was at the movies. I don’t even remember what we saw because we both fell asleep lol.

We’ve had a ton of fun together (as best friends do):

Just being goofy and getting to be yourself in a relationship is the best thing ever. For example…that time we dressed as Sesame Street characters for Halloween:

They were a little snug but it was all we could find at Walmart (or wherever we managed to find Sesame Street onesies lol).

Our relationship has been filled with other great moments too. Here, take a look!

Here we are at the air and water show in Chicago. This was Lea’s first time seeing the show put on by the Blue Angels. It was fun!

This was in Florida on one of our vacations! We did a boat tour of all these big, fancy houses on the lake. It was another great day with her.

I think this was the first time Lea came up to spend Thanksgiving with my family. This was the Wednesday night before the holiday. I don’t know about anywhere else, but up here in the region we call it “black Wednesday” because (when you’re of age of course) you go out to the bars and get drunk with all your friends who are back from college. We haven’t done this in years and I can’t say we miss it lol. Fun times, but we probably won’t ever do it again!

These next couple pictures will be college throwbacks. This one here was at one of my fraternities “hayrides”. It was basically an overnight camping trip where everyone brought friends and/or dates. It was a big party in the woods. Here we were at the beginning of the night.

And here we were at the end lol We were just sleepy…that’s all…

Here we are at Lea’s 21st birthday. If you didn’t know, we are there days apart. She’s older, so those three days she went out without me were miserable! Anyways, here we are three days later…

Sadly I didn’t get a sash so everyone could know it’s my 21st birthday, but it’s okay it was a fun night anyways!

Still freshly 21 here. We found this bar in the region that had these mini beer mugs!

I’m so thankful all of these moments were captured. When I look at them I can almost go back in time to those days. They were so fun. Little did we know what the future had in store for us though…

Engaged! I know for a fact both of us would go back in time and make style changes for this day if we could…but we can’t so if we have to look at these outfits so do all of you.

Winter engagement photoshoot. It was SO COLD. Not our brightest idea but we had to get them done at some point. I guess we could have waited until the spring…our wedding wasn’t until September the following year lol.

And here it is…the best day of my life. When we finally tied the knot and became husband and wife. After all those fun times we shared, getting to know each other more and more each and every day, breaking up for 14 hours in college and getting back together because I bought you starburst jelly beans (yes this really happened), to getting engaged and married, it has been one hell of a ride. I just want to say thank you, Lea for everything you do for me, and for everything you will continue to do for me. You are the best friend and wife I could have ever been given and, as the great Kenny Chesney said, “I don’t see how you could ever be anything but mine” (you didn’t think I’d go this entire post without quoting from one of my favorite songs did you?).

Happy nine year anniversary, Lea. I love you so much!

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