Our Love Story!

So I thought I’d write a post about how I met and fell in love with my husband Christopher. Well it goes something like this.

Early last summer (2008) I was between jobs and was at orientation for my new job when I met one of my best girlfriends (we’ll call her Mrs. M) at said orientation. We ended up sitting next to each other by some fluke and started chit chatting away. We went out to lunch that day and hit it off. I learned that day that her husband was stationed at Fort Lewis and that she was finishing her RN at a local community college. We kept in touch by phone mostly. About a month or so later she invited me to her husband’s birthday party down at the Ram on the water front in Tacoma. So originally I had plans for that night to head into Seattle but changed them so I could go and meet a lot of Melissa’s friends. She promised some good looking single guys!

I showed up that night and had so much fun. That night I met Chris, but he was totally not on my radar. I knew he was in the military and not too long before this I had been burned pretty bad by a man that was in the military. So I pretty much ignored Chris. In fact there was another guy there that was very charming and quite cute I might add, I won’t mention his name but he was definitely on my radar. I was hitting on this poor guy pretty darn hard. Unfortunately what this certain fellow didn’t tell me until a week or so later was that he was not available. He was in a on again, off again relationship. I was pretty bummed. It did not help my already wounded ego from a relationship that had gone sour a few weeks before. In fact I remember talking to Mrs. M a few days later complaining that I was so tired of this dating game. I just wanted to be married already to a wonderful man. I wanted my dream of being married and to start a family to hurry up and get here. Boy if I could have just looked around the corner and saw what God had in store for me!

So probably about a week or two later I was invited to go to a water park with Mrs. M and a few others. One of these few others was Chris. Come to find out Chris and Mrs. M’s husband were best friends. We talked a little bit that day and the flirting started that night in the hot at the water park. I did not think much of it, I thought he was cute, but I did not think anything would come of it.

That same weekend I was invited to Mrs. M place for a late dinner after work with her husband (we’ll call him S) and Chris was going to be there too. So I smelled something brewing even before I got to Mrs. M and S’ place. I get there and the apartment is dimly lit and something smelled really good. The guys had made dinner for Mrs. M and I. That night the sparks flew. Weeks later we were pretty much inseparable. It did not take long before Chris was smitten with me. It took me a little longer to really be fully invested in our relationship but not too long into it and I was head over heels for my soldier. Even then we spent over a month apart while he was doing training exercises with allied forces in Germany. We spent a significant amount of time apart during those first few months. I began to see what this life was going to be like. The constant training the long days, and the build towards a year long deployment. It was not fun and I did some yelling and arguing with him about his choice of a career. Even then I was not sure if his career choice was the life I wanted. However when it came down to it I loved him more than the inevitable sacrifices I would be making to love him and to be with him. Even then I asked God for strength because it was hard to understand why Chris had such a desire for a career in the Army.

In February a few days before Valentines day Chris took me to a really nice restaurant over looking the sound in Tacoma. It was beautiful, the city lights gleaming down in the valley. Chris was acting a little weird that night but I just pushed away that it was the fancy restaurant and the suit and tie making him uncomfortable. Right before dinner he came over to my side of the table. I remember thinking to myself what the heck is he doing. He pulled out the chair that separated us and got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. I was instantly teary eyes and so surprised, I had no idea that he was going to ask. I wanted him to and knew it would come eventually, but I had no idea that, that dinner at that restaurant would the place we would get engaged. Four months later on July 11, 2009 in Las Vegas surrounded by our friends and family we got married. So yes our wedding anniversary is 7-11. I figured that way he wouldn’t forget it. Thirteen days later we began the hardest thing I think a newly married couple can endure, our first deployment together. As I sat in the Tricare office getting enrolled, Chris got the call that his deployment date was being pushed up again. Instead of having the rest of the week and the weekend to spend time with friends and family we only had four days. I sat there crying because I had spent the previous weekend working thinking I had more time but it was not to be. So that Friday I tearfully left my husband on base to deploy to Iraq for a year. It is not easy to be separated by so much distance, but I try to let him know that I love him each and every day. The disconnect I feel sometimes can feel overwhelming at times but each day God gives me the strength to push forward until we are together again.

~ by Green Eyed Girl on November 9, 2009.