Eleven

It was the summer of 1999. A few months earlier I had broken off the engagement to my college boyfriend after a 3 year relationship and just 2 months before our planned wedding. I was out of college and working full time but not really finding the right guys to date and still very gun shy about the whole thing.

Enter my sister and her friend, Anna, who had hatched a plan to play matchmaker between me and Anna's best friend. 

Scot.

We first began talking over email because I still lived in Michigan while he lived in Pittsburgh.  After a few weeks I gave him my phone number and he called me for the first time. When I asked "how are you?" he said "Nervous."  

That phone call lasted 2 hours.

We talked on the phone almost every day after that for hours at a time.  Finally, I was going to be in Columbus visiting my sister on a weekend that he would also be there visiting Anna. A meeting was arranged.

He brought me Betsy Ann chocolates and became the first man to ever bring me chocolates.

We had our first date that weekend at The Columbus Zoo. When I asked how the koalas could sleep in the trees without falling out he said "They're fully koala-ified." Between the puns and the giant land tortoise sex it was a successful first date.

Two years later, on this day in October 2001, we got married.  

Today we celebrate our eleventh anniversary and in the last year life has challenged us in ways I wasn't prepared for. But all the frayed nerves and stress haven't driven a wedge between us. Instead we have weathered it all as a team, supporting each other and tackling everything that's been thrown at us. Sometimes I feel like our marriage is made of steel because it's been tempered in fire. 

I'm sure there were people wondering if we would make it this far especially when we got engaged only a year after I broke it off with my ex-fiancee. I'm sure my parents worried that I was making another mistake by jumping into such a serious relationship so soon after my previous one.  But I got lucky and found my partner. I found the man who would become a great Dad to our kids. I found the person that complements me in ways I didn't know were possible.

There is nowhere else I'd rather be.

Husband and Wife!