Happy Valentines Day

It is way early on Valentines Day. I'm battling this crazy cold and was laying in bed, tossing and turning, listening to my husband snore and thinking about all of the wonderful memories I have of the two of us when I decided to get up and write a very special Valentines Day blog in honor of my awesome, sleeping, snoring husband :)

Here are some of my favorites:

The day we first met I was a sophomore in college and had just transferred to Miami. My ex-boyfriend George and I had made a "lunch date". I lived in Ogden Hall, right above Bell Tower so who knows why but George and I went all the way down to Martin dining hall down by Flower and Hahne. We got our lunches and slid into a booth in the dining hall when George recognized one of his fraternity brothers and decided to call him over to sit with us. It was Andrew, or "Roush" as they used to call him. Andrew and I probably just said "hi" and the three of us sat there in awkward silence over our food for the next 20 minutes. I thought he was cute but he had an air of confidence about him that made me believe he could get any girl he wanted and was probably a bit of a "player" Boy how wrong I was, but more on that later.

I ran in to Andrew a 2nd time that summer at a party my friends Kendra and Nikki were having at their apartment. Somehow, they had invited Michael Bonham, who had invited Brett Taylor and "Roush". At the time, I was "talking" to a guy named Andy and barely even spent any time with "Roush". The party came and went and I didn't think twice about the guy from the party.

Now, skip to the fall of my junior year. As fate would have it, the previous year I had made arrangements to live with Kendra on campus in Gamma Phi's sorority hall. Long story short but sororities at Miami didn't have houses, but the University so graciously *sigh*cough* sets aside a block of dorm rooms for only a sorority and whoever the members chose to live with. So after K's horrible roommate experience the previous year, we had decided it was safer to live together. Late in our sophomore year, Kendra decided that Miami wasn't the place for her and transferred to Sinclair. Therefore, I was left without a roommate and could a.) take my chances of being assigned to a room with a random person the next year or b.) accept the invitation from Angie across the hall to live with her in Ox-commons, seeing as her previous roommate had also changed her mind. So, I was living in Ox commons - 1603 Ox commons maybe? In a one room apartment with Angie, a girl I knew only in passing and who I wll forever remember for her smoking habits, shingles outbreak, and crazy-ass boyfriend who I found passed out on our couch one morning in his tightie whities. Awesome.

I moved in to Miami about a week early because I was helping out with Orientation and needed to be there for transfer orientation (which ironically enough, Kendra and I had skipped when we transfered in haha!) and for this mini refresher orientation they put on for the freshman. I knew my friend Mike was moving in early to his fraternity house and called him one night out of the blue to see what he was doing. He told me that he was at a party at 1604 Ox commons! "No way - that's right next door to me, I'm coming over!" I told him as I invited myself into his night. This was the night I really saw "Roush".

Over the next couple weeks, I'd saunter over to his place whenever I heard a party going on or would wave flirtaously as I walked past and he was standing on the porch smoking a cigarette. I told Mike that I was falling hard for "Roush" and asked that he help coax it along. Sure enough, one night during a party, "Roush" and I ventured over to my apartment where it was a little quieter and we could "talk." Within a few minutes of sitting down on the couch, he romantically leaned over to me and said "I really want to kiss you.....but my mouth is dry" Awesome. Smooth move Romeo. So up I went over to the counter and got him some water. Most girls would have been like "whatever!" and walked out but not me, I got him that water so I could get a kiss. And boy what a kiss it was! He was a good kisser - phew! I would have really regretted the whole water thing if he wasn't. After that, it's all kinda blurry. I remember him telling me he wanted to date and when I asked if he wanted us to date exclusively or not, he said exclusively and my heart melted. Remember earlier when I mentioned how I thought he was a bit of a "player" the first time I met him based on his confidence level alone? Yeah, well I soon came to find out that I was wrong, so so wrong. In fact, I was his first girlfriend! His first kiss! He wasn't that player I initally pegged him to be - he was innocent!

I will always look back on Junior year and smile because of meeting and falling in love with Andrew. Our first real date was dinner at Kona with Amy and her then boyfriend, Allen. I remember our first Valentines day together- he made me dinner and my favorite dessert (tiramusu!) and we watched The Godfather. I remember meeting his parents for the first time and thinking how much his father looked like my HS band director, Wayne. I remember one weekend when all of our roommates had gone home and Oxford was hit with a snowstorm so we were literally snowed in. We made a little path from his apartment to mine and spent the entire weekend sleeping and watching movies. Oh and every Sunday we'd wake up and eat blueberry pancakes while watching Super Troopers. It became "our thing".

To be continued.....

Love,
E