The Young and the Restless

An Unforgettable Day Somehow Forgotten

Thursday started out as any other day, checking my email over a bowl of Trix cereal. I came across my sister's comment on my blog that said "happy anniversary!" I sat there totally confused thinking, anniversary of what?....anniversary that summer's almost over...anniversary that my pregnancy is half over....I was stumped until it hit me. Oh my gosh, today is our 9 year wedding anniversary! Talk about sad and pathetic. What's even worse is that it was actually her husband that remembered. What's even worse is that when I checked our mail there was an anniversary card from our pool builder in there. Great, so our brother-in-law AND pool builder remember, but we don't (which in a way creeped me out because no where on the contract between the questions of what kind of pump we wanted and the color choice for the finish, do I recall seeing a question about when our anniversary is). Jason was in Vegas so I called him and was both relieved and disappointed to see that he had forgotten too. He was coming home that night, but unfortunately the house was going to be full of 6 year old girls for Kylie's little party (thanks again, Julie for the cute anniversary gift, you are so thoughtful!), which doesn't rank too high on the list of romantic evenings. I scrambled around and found a baby-sitter for Saturday night, so it will be fun to celebrate then. Jason was so cute and picked out a customized candy arrangement with all my favorite candies--Yorks, white chocolate pretzels, swedish fish and even the nut rolls. Everything I love and everything I really didn't need all rolled into one, pretty much the perfect gift. What's even sweeter is that by the time he picked something out he was about to miss his plane so he sacrificed eating dinner for the sake of the present. Now that's romantic. Besides, it's not just about the day, it's about the incredible past nine years that we've had together. As a little tribute, I'm finally getting around to recording our "love story". I totally regret not keeping a journal during our dating years and I'm already worried that I'm beginning to forget the details. So for my own journaling sake, here it goes....(it's going to be long, so you may just want to skip this :)

I was fresh out of highschool, only 17 years old. My parents were moving out to Utah from Georgia the summer that I graduated, so I decided to just move up to Provo and try to find a job before school started. I found some great roommates and was having a blast "spreading my wings", finding my independance, dating lots and definately not looking to settle down. One day a boy called for my roommate Katie, she wasn't home and so I ended up chatting with him for a little bit. He sounded pretty cool and said that he and his friends were going to be stopping by to see Katie. I asked her about him when she came home and she told me that his name was Jason and that he served in the same mission as her. When they all came over I immediately thought that they were the coolest guys ever. They were all so funny and so fun to be around. I thought it was awesome how they had all been so tight since middle school and they were just such a unique group of guys--mischievious and naughty but good boys nonetheless. They were all living in Ogden selling security systems for the summer and I always looked forward to when they came down to Provo to hang out. I even tried bribing them to come down one time with promises of a nice Sunday dinner. I think they may have been disappointed to drive 1 1/2 hours for the infamous refried bean taco dinner. It was a fun summer hanging out, but he was dating a girl from Ogden and I ended up having a short little fling with one of his friends. Towards the end of summer they invited me to go with them for a day of wakeboarding on the lake. I remember thinking how cute he looked out on the boat, and he would flirt with me each time he came off the board by telling me that he was cold and we would end up snuggling a little bit under the towels. When it was time to head home, they stayed and hung out at my sister's apartment where I was staying for a couple of weeks before I moved into the dorms. We had been flirting the whole day and the inevitable happened when Jason busted out his famous pick up line "have you ever kissed a Chinaman before?" It was too cute and I couldn't resist. I thought we had kind of hit it off (he wanted to kiss me for heaven's sake!), but a week or so later he had told me that he would pick me up from work so that we could hang out. I was more than disappointed and a little ticked to see that instead he asked his friend to come and pick me up. I told him I wanted to talk to Jason, but he said that Jason had told him not to bring me over. I had gone from ticked to pissed and demanded that he took me to see him. He was at his sister's house and was just about to leave with his friends for a last quick Vegas trip before school started. I was mad..we talked...he told me he was getting more serious with the Ogden girl and then he headed off to Vegas. I pretty much wrote him off as a jerk at that point. I was surprised a couple of weeks later to get a phone call from him late one night. His car had broken down in Vegas and so he drove his brother's car back and asked me if I wanted to go with him for a drive. I really don't remember what we talked about but somehow we must have started to rekindle something because the next thing I remember we found ourselves making-out under a tree in Kiwanis park. He must have done some pretty smooth talking. Then to top off the whole evening he told me that he shouldn't have kissed me because he was getting more serious with the Ogden girl and that we probably shouldn't hang out anymore. He went straight back to jerk status, but I was surprised to find myself actually feeling more sad than mad. We had had such a fun summer hanging out getting to know each other and for some reason the "forbidden love" was tempting. School started and for the next month I was having a blast, but Jason was still somewhere in the back of my mind. On Labor Day his friend had called to see if I wanted to go to the lake with them again. Of course I wanted to, but I wasn't quite sure what to think when I found out that Jason was going to be there too. I was a little nervous, but once I saw him we both couldn't stay away from each other. We had the best time on the lake, then afterwards we went back to Provo and we took a walk through these paths behind the RB on campus. We had a long talk and he told me that he had broken up with his girlfriend. I can't remember everything that we talked about, but I'm sure he said something to me along the lines of, "you are the one for me, I missed you every second of every day since the last time I saw you a month ago. I should have never wasted my time with that lame chick from Ogden when you were the one for me....." Or something like that. We went with his friends to see the "Truman Show" that night, which we considered to be our first date. We were pretty much inseperable after that. We hung out every chance we had, I loved dating an "older man" with a car (it's a huge deal when you're a freshman and nobody has a car). He was a good sport to hang out at the dorms with me and even go with me to a few of the lame freshman dances like "buddy ball". We made several trips to Vegas which were always a blast. He taught me how to snowboard, which I learned to love. We went to Ogden to see his friend's band play at a club (we met up with some of the people they hung out with, including his old girlfriend. She totally got all dressed up and was flirting with Jason the whole night. It was kind of funny.) He wrote me songs and seranaded me on his guitar. We went to "Fall Flings" and "Spring Flings". We would stay up talking until 4:00 am. We went grocery shopping together. We went to eat at poor college favorites like Sounds EZ Pizza and the Grilled Pepper. He would wake up early every day to drive me to my job since I didn't have a car, which usually resulted in him missing his 8:00 class that he ended up failing. We spent many Friday nights at the Nicklecade and bowling at the Wilkenson center. I don't think that I had ever lived off such little sleep or laughed that much in all of my previous 18 years of life. The big "I love you" came unexpectedly. We were at Freshman friday (once again he was a good sport to go with me) and I just remember he was doing something really funny, I was standing on a little hill and I looked down at him and without thinking, I blurted it out. I was really emberassed because I don't think we had been dating for that long. He didn't say it back, which made me even more emberassed, but that night when we were back at his apartment he told me that he loved me too. I wasn't emberassed anymore. Later in the year (I don't remember exactly when) we were sitting out on a grassy hill on campus by the bell tower just talking. We had always joked about getting married, but this was the first time we talked about it really seriously. We ended up talking until around 3:00 in the morning and I couldn't go to sleep at all that night because I was so love struck. He ended up proposing to me on the last day of finals. He tried to surprise me with the ring, but was too excited to keep it a surprise and ended up showing it to me before he proposed. He took me to that same hill where we first started talking about marriage. He had surprised me with a set of scriptures that had my "new" name, Jamie Ann Young, engraved on them. Two months later we were married in the Mt. Timpanogas temple. Here we are 9 years later, still just as happy and even more in love. Happy anniversary, love you!