Our story - dating


It seems that our time dating before being engaged was very short ... and it was. We dated for about 4 1/2 months before Dennis proposed to me. So, there probably isn't a lot of stories or things to tell during this time (and since this was over 12 years ago, my memory is a bit fuzzy). :) 

 I do remember the first time that I took Dennis to my parents house for the weekend for them to meet him. He went to bed and as soon as he was out of the room, with a huge smile on my face, I turned to my mom and asked "so, what do you think?" She said something to the affect of "well, I think it's nice that you're here ... " avoiding the question! HA! She eventually did tell me that she thought he was a nice young man. And, she could tell that I was really happy. 

 I also remember meeting Dennis' parents for the first time. We drove the 8ish hours to their house - and I think that I sat in the back of the pickup, watching a movie while Dennis drove with headphones on too so he could at least listen to the movie. I brought gifts for his parents and his mom also gave one to me. She handed me a box and said "I have a story to tell you about this gift. When I became engaged to Dennis' dad, his mother handed me a box and inside was a teacup. She said that was a tradition in welcoming women into the family. So, I want to welcome you to the family." WOW! This was the first time that I had met his parents and I was already being welcomed to the family! 

 We talked quite a bit about getting married and I had just started going back to school. I was going to get a degree in elementary school teaching. I do remember Dennis saying "If we get married, and I put you through school which takes 4 years, and we have kids in 4 years and you are a stay at home mom - then what was the reason for you going to school?" Oh how naive we were - but of course we didn't realize that at the time! 

 One of our biggest arguments was about children. Dennis said that he didn't want any and I had always wanted 4! We decided to keep on dating and not break up - but I asked Dennis to promise me that he would consider having children. 

 He would drive up to SW Washington where I lived and I would drive to Portland several times a week to be together in the evenings. We would fix dinner and then hang out together and when at his apartment, his roommate and cousin was often there too. 

 Like I said earlier, it seems the details of this time are a bit fuzzy - we were in the phase of getting to know each other better and were enjoying each others company a lot! 

 To be continued ... The engagement story 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our story - The Engagement

While Dennis and I were dating, he requested one evening where we didn't see each other, so that the next time that we did, we would appreciate being together more. It was also sort of nice having a break where I could go shopping or do something that I normally wouldn't do during the evenings we were together. One Thursday evening in January - January 12, 2006 to be exact ... it happened.  We hadn't seen each other that week since Monday evening. I walked up to Dennis' apartment door and it was locked. I thought that was odd because he knew that I was coming, so I knocked and he opened the door. He gave me a quick hug and then said "I have a question to ask you, but I can't ask you out here." He took my hand and lead me down the hallway to his bedroom. On the outside of his closed bedroom door, on the floor were a dozen red roses. He opened the door and I saw in his bedroom the cutest small black and white kitten! I started exclaiming "You got a...
Read more

Updating our house

We received our keys on a Thursday (of Memorial Day weekend), so that evening when Dennis got off work, we arrived at our new home and Dennis started tearing up the carpets and pads. There were some placed in the hallway that the carpet pad was stuck to the subflooring because of pet messes. Dennis sent me into the garage to spray and wipe down the shelves in the garage - those shelves were covered in mold!  We had written out a pretty tight timeline for getting things done in our new home and because our closing date moved farther back than originally thought - our timeline also got pushed back. What we had hoped to accomplish by Thursday was tear up all the carpet and pads and sand the floors down. We worked really hard the first evening and when we both started getting grumpy, I knew we needed to stop. So, we went back to the house we were living in for the night.  The next evening, Friday, we started sanding the floors and by Saturday, we had my parents, Denni...
Read more

Fertility treatment discussions / adoption discussions

Once a couple realizes biological children may not happen for them, there is a grieving process that needs to take place. It can look very different for everybody, including husbands and wives married to each other. I am going to speak for us and say that the process for me took longer and was harder than it was for Dennis. Being a female, having maternal instincts and having ALWAYS wanted to become a mother - walking through this journey was extremely difficult.  One of our biggest disagreements in our marriage was whether we felt okay doing in vitro fertilization. My thoughts at the time were that this was a perfectly acceptable way and hurrah to modern medicine to be able to help couples become pregnant this way. Dennis on the other hand felt so strongly that this was against God's plan. He feels that taking follicles from the females bodies and having the sperm and egg meet in a petri dish and then implant those back into the female was wrong. He was upset and probably d...
Read more