Today is our 7 year wedding anniversary. 7 whole years. You know what that means? We got married way too young. HA! No really....we did.
Anyhow, Daniel and I have gone through a lot together and have come out on top...most of the time.
I know that in the Midwest, people getting married at 21 is no big deal. In Austin...people look at us like we're nuts. And we didn't live together before we were married either. Now we're nuts and we have an extra arm growing out of our head. But to a lot of people it would be utterly despicable to even think about "living in sin"/shacking up before wedlock. It's all about perspective.
I hear the argument a lot that, "you wouldn't buy a car without test driving it, would you?" Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's our side of the coin. See, Daniel and I got married at 21 after dating less than 2 years. That's really soon. After we got married we went through a typical rough patch that made us both question if we had made the right decision. One of my favorite lines an old co-worker gave me was, "Never get married. It's a lot easier to kick em out than it is to divorce em." So true. Thanks Rene. But keeping that in mind, if we had gone through that same rough patch as "live-in boyfriend/girlfriend" that rough patch could have ended in us breaking up. But because we were married we stuck it out and guess what?! It wasn't the end of the world! We got through it and now we are really truly stinkin' happy. Like the kind of happy that annoys others. So you could say that marriage saved our relationship. ;)
Every year for Christmas I make Daniel's sisters make my presents instead of buying them. It has made Christmas 4 billion times more awesome and I am not even remotely kidding.
Last year, Daniel's youngest sister Mallory asked Daniel and I to send her "our story" about how we met, started dating, blah blah blah. We didn't know why, but we both did it... separately. Well it was a part of our Christmas present. I asked Daniel if I could have "his story" to post here so you can read both versions.
My story:
Well, you know there are 3 sides to every story: His side; my side; and the truth. =)
I moved to the KC area in February of 2002 with the intention of helping Andrew and Jade get a Master’s Commission started at FAOG Lee’s Summit. How silly I was, thinking that my plans were going to work out!
I met Daniel fairly soon after I got to Lee’s Summit. I was sitting in the office/Youth Sunday School room playing solitaire on Andrew's computer and all I remember was Daniel was sitting across from me. Being the shy girl that I am, I started asking him about himself. I cracked a lame joke and he chuckled. Perfect. He was so quiet and had the dark hair, skin and eyes that I find attractive so I immediately knew I was going to start liking him…eventually.
Well, for the next few months, I did not like Daniel. I’m sure he’ll tell you about how I yelled at him in front of everyone at a lock in and embarrassed him so badly. But again…that’s his side of the story. =)
Over that summer, the entire youth group it seemed had gone on some choir trip (what that means, I still have no idea) except…the Cottermans. The Cottermans were a strange family, I thought. They all had different hair colors, so I didn’t know for the longest time that they were siblings. I told myself that I was going to get to know them better while everyone else was gone. I knew all along that I wanted to get to know one Cotterman in particular more than the others…but I tried to keep that to myself.
It just so happened that my roommate, Patty had been invited to a party at the Cotterman house to celebrate Mom Cotterman finishing school (or something like that). I was a little jealous because I wanted to hang out at the Cotterman house, but I hadn’t been invited.
Then on my birthday, I got a card from Daniel. It was by far the strangest birthday card I had ever gotten and even now I have to laugh when I think about it. It was a “Mahogany” card. You know…the cards marketing specifically for black culture. He thought it looked “Southwestern-y” and he knew I was from Texas. I’m still laughing. In the card he was very vague, but he did tell me that I was also invited to the party! Hooray!
So that weekend we went to the party and I felt very awkward. When I came in and was standing around in the kitchen with all the ladies, Cindy (Daniel's mom) lets me know that Daniel won’t be home until later. I was at first confused, then embarrassed and I am sure both of these emotions were very clearly stated in my expression. She tried to back-pedal (she hasn’t gotten any better at that over the years) but it was too late. I felt so silly going over there now. So, I left the adult area and decided to hang out with the teenagers. At some point we all headed downstairs in the basement and started looking at pictures. We found Dan and Cindy’s wedding album and Tina and I were looking through it. I noticed that 20 year old Dan looked a whole lot like 20 year old Daniel. I pointed this out to Tina, who agreed. Then I said, “You know what that means? Daniel would be a good investment.” She laughed. I wasn’t kidding.
Eventually Daniel came home, we all chilled out and I decided that night that I was going to pursue this investment opportunity.
Over the next few weeks, he and I spent a lot of time together after church just hanging out. At some point during these weeks we decided we were going to be officially “dating”. The day after we decided that, I changed my mind and dumped him. Why? I have no idea. But let me tell you about why I changed my mind again the very next day.
My cell phone did not work at my apartment. There was a parking lot up the road from me that I got a good signal at, so whenever I wanted to call and chat with anyone, I drove to that parking lot. Well, the night after we decided to become a couple, I called Daniel pretty late and asked him to come meet me at my parking lot so we could talk. He comes out there and he had obviously already gone to bed, but came out there anyway. I gave him this long speech about being busy and needing to focus on Master’s and blah blah blah. He told me that he would wait for me whether I needed two weeks or two years. This didn’t really faze me though. THEN after a long talk, I get out of his car and go to get back in my truck….and the door is locked…and the keys are in it. Great. I went back to his car and told him. He called a locksmith for me. He also waited with me until the locksmith showed up. He then paid the locksmith for me. AFTER I JUST DUMPED THE GUY! What the heck did I just do?!
So, the next day I spent the whole day at Jade’s moping around. At some point I made the comment that I had a good excuse to be grouchy after what had happened. She retorted with, “No, Daniel has a good excuse for being grouchy. You don’t.”
So, I called him that night and we talked for a crazy long time and decided that we were back together again. That was September 26, 2002.
We went through the same stuff everyone else goes through while dating. Nothing really exciting every happened. We knew pretty quickly that we wanted to get married, but I had it in my mind that it would be several years before that ever happened. Daniel, however, had an 18 month time frame in mind. He really shouldn’t have told me that because it scared the poop outta me. Ironically, the exact time he had guessed we might get married was when we did get married.
We started making plans and after trying to decide between having the wedding in KC or in San Antonio, we decided on KC. My family is pretty small, so it made more sense than all of his family coming down to Texas.
Well, I had started to feel that Daniel had been making all the decisions for the wedding. At one point I mentioned Vegas and that was immediately vetoed. Then the venue I picked was no good, so he picked out a different one. Things like this kept going on…until the cake decision came to be made. I had picked out a cake already. I took Daniel to the store to show him the cake in the book. He said he didn’t like that one. That was it. I was the girl; I am supposed to pick all this stuff out! So after that things were changed. We decided to compromise. I wanted to elope; he wanted a big fancy wedding. So, we had a nice wedding in Vegas. It was exactly what I wanted: Easy. I just showed up, looked pretty, got married and that was all I had to do. It was my favorite wedding ever. And I did end up getting that cake I wanted. =)
That was over 6 years ago and at the risk of being cliché, I love him more now than I ever could have imagined back then.
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His Story:
I'm trying to remember how it all started. I remember the first time I really interacted with Heather was at the church during the video scavenger hunt. Josh Coster and I were wheelie-ing the wheelchair during Andrews speech. I was in the chair and Josh tipped me over in front of everyone. I was embarrassed enough, but Heather, who didn't know me at the time said rather loudly "What are you, like 5?"
I was so embarrassed/angry, I left and went home. I knew right then that I liked her, but I obviously felt that she didn't think the same way. I think she was just trying to backup Andrew as a leader and as a Masters Commission student, but she really did care for me, secretly.
A few weeks later , Mom was throwing a party at our house for graduating school or Seargents test. She invited Patty and Heather to come. The party had started before I was home from work or class, I think class actually. Anyway, while Patty and Heather were mingling and talking to a group of moms friends, Mom said outloud "Daniel isn't here yet. He will be home in a little while". Heather was embarrassed because as she secretly liked me, she didn't want everyone to know that she cared, especially in front of Patty and all the ladies of the church. After I got home, a group of us hung out in my room and watched Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring, Heathers favorite movie at the time.
Over that summer she and I hung out a lot mostly at night going to parks or one of our favorites was going to Dennys or sitting in the bed of her truck talking. At some point near the end of summer, she asked what we were. I lied and said I hadn't thought about it. I hoped to start going out, but I didn't want to complicate things with youth or Masters, but after talking about it with Jade, Heather asked me out on a date. We wen t to see Legally Blonde 2 (Heather's note: we went to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding, actually) and Marcy and Pat Droege were there too. It was weird, but we didn't talk to them. We continued to date for a couple weeks.
Heather asked me to meet her at the park near Pattys one night. I drove over and she sat in my car and we talked. Mostly she talked and she didn't feel comfortable dating with her youth leader and Masters commitments. So we broke up and as she went to leave, her keys were locked in her truck. I called to have her door opened around midnight and paid the man and we left. I went home pretty upset, but I told Heather to take as much time as she needed to figure it out.
After a few days a of moping around and some heart to heart talking with Jade, Heather decided to go for it, and she asked if I still wanted to have a relationship. I was so excited and a little confused because only 2 days before she wanted to break it off. I obliged and we have been together ever since.
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Here is what Mal made for us:
Happy Anniversary Honey!!!
Awwwwww
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