It's September 22 … A Big Day In My Home!

If you’ve come around here more than once or twice, you know I’m head-over-heels in love with my wife, Tiffany. Well, today marks 16 years to the day since I took her out on a date for the first time, so we celebrate this as an anniversary. So, I figured I’d dedicate this blog to her.

Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here, click here to see why I’m trying to run 61 full marathons this year for a great charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism.

OK, so here’s the quick rundown of how we started dating. We met on the newspaper at college. I was the sports editor, she was a good-looking newbie reporter. I tricked her into taking a women’s volleyball story so I could get to know her. The trick worked. We spent a lot of time working on that story and eventually, I worked up the courage to ask her out on a date on Sept. 21, 1994.

We went out on a date the next night, to a restaurant called Buffalo Ranch. I spilled my salad on my lap, but she didn’t really notice and I brushed it on the ground. We went down to Thalia Street in Laguna Beach for a walk on the beach. And then we went for a second walk on the beach, because I was too nervous to try to kiss her during the first walk. She forced the issue. Lucky me!

Anyways, I figure that for today, I’ll write down one quick memory, hopefully mostly funny, from each year we’ve been together.

1994: Meeting Her Parents
We had been dating a week or two. I went over to her house (she lived at home) to pick her up to go to a party. She had a midnight curfew, which I thought was funny since she was in college, but I respected that. She was very embarrassed about that and tried to talk her parents into easing that up.

Anyways, I got to the door and she told me to come in, because her parents wanted to meet me. That was fine with me — how bad could that be? The house was fairly dark, with just one lamp on at night time. She introduced me to her mom and I said hello. Then she said, “And this is my dad, Andy.”

So the first words he grumbles are, “So you’re the guy my daughter thinks she shouldn’t have a curfew for, huh?” Yeah, that’s me. Nice to meet you, too!

1995: She Followed Me To Kansas
At the time, my perspective was that she was moving out to Kansas, where I had transferred to go to Kansas State University, and she needed help finding a place. So, I called all the ads of people looking for roommates, I went and talked to people and I had her all set up. When she got to Kansas, she didn’t have a car, so I just gave her mine even though she didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. And she didn’t have any money, so I put her on my credit cards. I lived in my fraternity house and went to class. She worked two jobs.

Of course, from her parents’ perspective, she quit both her jobs, dropped out of school and bought a one-way plane ticket to Kansas, all in the course of a day. I was glad she was nearby. But I don’t think her parents were too big on me back then.

1996: Her 21st Birthday
Her birthday (December 16) was on a Sunday night, so I told her I was trying to get people together to go out, but I wasn’t having much luck because it was a work night. She was waiting at her parents’ house for me and the three other people who were going out to show up.

One by one, all of our friends called her up to apologize that they wouldn’t be able to make it out that night because it was a Sunday. Thank goodness that was before the days of caller ID, because she would have known that they were all calling from the pre-party at my parents’ house. She was beyond shocked when 18 of us piled out of two limousines to pick her up. Her parents were beyond shocked when about 10 of us piled into their house to use the bathrooms.

We had a great time that night. I think. I got cut off and then kicked out of the place we went to. I’m not going to say why.

1997: Frequent Flyer Miles
We left Kansas after 1995 and lived in Las Vegas in 1996. But I went back to finish up school in 1997 and we agreed to do the long-distance thing. I needed to focus and finish up my degree. We lived pretty far apart the entire year, and it was pretty tough. But we flew frequently. I’d fly west and she came to Kansas a few times.

One of those times she flew out was 13 years ago right now. On our September 22 anniversary in 1997, she was out there in Manhattan, Kan. with me, and we ate dinner at our favorite place in town, Harry’s Uptown. We ate there again in 1998, but we haven’t been back. One of these days we will.

1998: Surprise Visit!
I graduated from Kansas State University in December 1998. My brother, my parents and my grandparents all came out to visit. Tiffany couldn’t get the time off of work and was really upset that she couldn’t make it.

She called me up the night before my brother flew out and was crying on the phone, upset that she couldn’t be there. She was roommates with my brother in Las Vegas, so she put him on the phone after she was done talking to me. He was coming in on a redeye and renting a car, so he told me to leave my apartment unlocked so he could get in when he got there at 6 a.m.

No problem. I went out the night before, got my drink on, then crashed at about 2 a.m. I woke up at 6 a.m. to see Tiffany standing right there. What a great surprise! I was so glad she made it. We struggled so much to make it through those two long distance years and I’m glad she was able to see me graduate.

1999: May 23, Our Wedding Day
What more can I really say? I guess I have one quick anecdote. I lost 40 pounds in the three months before the wedding so I would look good for our pictures. Two nights before the wedding, I got a black eye. So much for the pictures, huh?

If you’re wondering what the other guy looked like, it was a doorknob. Two of my buddies were also a little drunk when they carried me in at the end of the night.

2000: Finding Out She Was Pregnant For The First Time!
I was the sports information director at a college and I was chit-chatting during halftime of a football game. I asked one of my co-workers about how the health care benefits were for when I had kids some day. They asked if there was something they should know, and I swore that no, there wasn’t. I wasn’t going to advertise that we were trying, but I figured Tiff would be pregnant within six months or so.

No more than three minutes later, she called me up screaming with excitement. Yes, she was pregnant! My co-workers thought I set the whole thing up. No, not at all. I was completely surprised! After the game, one of my student assistants asked me if I wanted a boy or a girl. That’s when I realized that after the whole “pregnancy” thing, there would be a baby as a party favor! Yikes! Me! A dad!

2001: A Romantic Valentine’s Dinner
So she’s about five months pregnant with our first child. I had planned on going out to Maggiano’s with her for Italian food. But on the way there, she changed her mind and said she wanted crab legs. I’m not a big crab legs guy, so I didn’t really know where to go. Red Lobster? I was going to make a call and find out where to go, but she knew where she wanted to go. She knew who made crab legs exactly to her liking. No matter what I said or where I suggested, she was dead set on where to eat for that Valentine’s Dinner when she was pregnant with our first child.

Yes, we went to Hooters.

2002: Wrong Restaurant In Puerta Vallarta
We were on a seven-day cruise and we stopped in Puerta Vallarta and had lunch at a restaurant the cruise ship recommended. While we were waiting for our food, a roach that was about two inches long walked across our table. We wanted to cancel our order, but the waiter wouldn’t let us. We were going to have to pay $40 to get out of there, so we decided to just eat anyways. We hoped it would be OK.

We went on a horseback riding excursion later that day. I got, hmmmmm, sick while we were out on that excursion in the middle of nowhere. I’ll just leave it at that. Tiff is probably laughing as she reads this.

2003: Tiff Can’t Surprise Me
Tiff called me up at work three times one morning about a month before my birthday asking for me to try to get in touch with one of my good friends for her. Then about an hour later, my mother-in-law called me from Tiff’s phone asking a question about seller integrity on eBay. I asked her what the seller’s star rating was, and she had no clue about what the eBay website looked like. When I asked her what she bought, she hesitated before saying, “Uh, a lamp?” I had used eBay a few times to buy and sell event tickets, and I knew my Chiefs were playing in San Diego the week after my birthday, so I knew what my present was. I told Tiff to be smarter about things and she got upset because she felt like she can never surprise me.

For that same birthday, we were talking and she was talking aloud to me, wondering how somebody was going to make it to my surprise birthday dinner at a restaurant called Javier’s. I reminded her that she was speaking out loud, and she got upset again about not being able to surprise me. I told her to pick a new restaurant and surprise me. The next day, I cleaned up all the files on the desktop on my computer. I took Benjamin to the park and when I came back, there was a menu downloaded to the desktop of a different restaurant. I told her to do that kind of stuff under her user account!

So a week later, it’s my birthday, and I’m hanging out at home by myself, watching Michigan-Ohio State. The phone rings and the caller ID says it’s that second restaurant, so I just let the call go. Somebody leaves a message confirming the party of 16 for 6:30 p.m. Oops, she did it again!

2004: OK, She Snuck One By Me
I was expecting a surprise party for my 30th birthday party, which fell on a Monday. The Friday before, right when I was on my way out the door from work, my dad called me up with a ridiculous request for computer help. I called up Tiff and she was way more willing than normal to let me go over there and help.

He stalled me with stupid questions for a good two hours. Finally, Tiff called over there and asked me to come home, and my dad dropped everything and ushered me out the door. My stomach was in knots. I thought I was going home to a party and I was on edge when I opened up the door.

Benjamin, who was 3 at the time, was sitting on the couch as I opened the door. He had a noisemaker and yelled, “Surprise Daddy!” as I walked in. Tiff was sitting there cracking up, because the house was calm and quiet.

She got me. The party ended up being the next night.

2005: Her 30th Birthday
For her 30th birthday, we had it all planned out. We were going to drive down to San Diego and have a nice night, sans kids. We had babysitting all lined up and were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, all three kids were sick.

So we changed that to dinner out. We went to Fleming’s, a nice steak restaurant. We had never been to a nice restaurant like that. Those kind of things are way too expensive for us, but the food was great and we had a great time talking with each other for about three hours that night. It was the best meal we had ever enjoyed together, and to this day, it still probably is.

2006: I Was Hard On Myself Back Then, Too
I’ll always remember June 4, 2006, the day I ran my first marathon. It was in San Diego and Tiff and the kids came down to see me finish. I really wanted to run a sub-4, and Tiff knew that was my goal, but I knew by about mile 21 that it wasn’t going to happen. I got upset and just about started crying, because I felt like I was letting them down.

But then I pulled out a strip of pictures Tiff gave me to carry and started thinking about how fortunate I was to have them, because if I would have been paralyzed when I broke my neck when I was 16, I would have never met Tiff and there would be no Ben, Jack and Ava. I bucked up because I realized I didn’t let them down.

2007: One Proud Husband!
She trained for a 5K on July 4 and wanted to run it in 27 minutes, but paced it poorly and ran a 29. She wanted revenge two weeks later and ran another 5K, aiming for that 27-minute mark again. I hung out at the finish line with the kids, and hoped to see her reach her goal.

I saw her come around more than a minute early and go 25:40. I’ll never forget seeing her come around the corner right before the finish, her face red as she obviously labored through a tough run. I don’t really care how fast she runs. But to see her go out and reach for a goal and kill it with authority? I was so proud of her and I’ll never forget that feeling.

2008: A Tough Year
She’ll probably kill me for saying this, but 2008 was our toughest year ever. And I’m to blame. But we went out to dinner two years ago tonight and permanently resolved every issue we had. I feel like we’ve never been stronger than we’ve been the past two years. That dinner was the turning point. We’ve always been madly in love, but our relationship reached new levels for strength at that dinner.

We have plenty of memories, and that dinner is another one I’ll never forget.

2009: Long Beach Marathon
Best date ever! We went for 26.2 together! I trained her for her first marathon, and it was so wonderful to do that with her. As a marathon runner, I’d say that there’s nothing quite as enjoyable as running a marathon with your spouse. It was an awesome experience. She’s battled a lot of injuries, so I’m hopeful we can do that again. Maybe even just a half-marathon. I don’t care. I love running with her.

2010: We are BROKE!
For our wedding anniversary this year, she bought me a coffee mug that she was able to write her own message on. The message is “It’s our 11-year anniversary and all I could afford is this mug!” It’s my favorite coffee mug — I used it this morning. I love it, and someday we’re going to look back on it and laugh. I don’t care that we can’t afford anything. I have her, she has me, and we get to ride this roller coaster together.

Tiff, I know you packed that pasta for me today, but I can eat that for lunch tomorrow and meet you at Chipotle in the Spectrum at about 11:45 so you can get back to the Ranch on time! I love you!

Oh, and for everybody else, if you read all the way to here, that means you must have liked what I wrote. If so, can you do me a favor? Click to my St. Jude Children’s Hospital page and donate a dollar to help me reach my goal?

That’s all! Have a great September 22 everybody!