It Doesn't Get Much Cuter Than This

January 7th is better than Valentine's Day at our house... Skip & I get all mushy on this day. It's the anniversary of our first date!

It was a Sunday afternoon, because, well, we've never been ordinary, I suppose. No Friday or Saturday evening night out for us...

It was a Friday night when it finally dawned on me that Skip must LIKE me... I was staying at a girlfriend's house. I was fifteen. A sophomore in high school-- sleepovers were what we did every weekend that we could convince our parent's to schleppe us to a friends' house!

Skip was 17- a senior. (I know! Not bad for a dorky sophomore.) He had liked me for a couple months and it had never registered on my radar until that Friday night. By the time it did (it was an "AHA!" moment- not a gradual realization) it was almost midnight- too late to try to get his number to call him. The next morning I was off to a track meet with Katherine. I finally got in touch with him later that afternoon. We agreed to go out for a matinee the next afternoon. I couldn't sleep that night and woke up with a crazy-nervous stomach. (That still happens to me if I am really excited about something!) I drank almost a whole bottle of Pepto-Bismol that morning. Which, I am 100% sure, is why to this day I cannot tolerate anything wintergreen! Actually, for the first several months we were dating, Skip would pop a wintergreen breath mint before we got home to my door- not knowing that the smell made me sick! (Somehow I still mustered up the strength to give him goodnight kisses...)

Anyway, he showed up early that afternoon in his Dodge Charger, wearing jeans and a sport coat. He met my parents and we went off to Pizza Hut. (I told you- we were both in HIGH SCHOOL, People!) After lunch we saw Always with Holly Hunter & Richard Dreyfuss. Our legs were touching during the movie and I could feel his leg bouncing up and down- a little twitch that he still does when he's preoccupied and/or nervous! (Sometimes at the dinner table I have to remind him that all of us can feel the table bouncing when he does that!) With about five minutes left in the movie we finally got brave enough to hold hands. Then he drove me home where I rewarded him with a hug. Yes, a HUG. That's just how wholesome I am was.

Happy Eighteen Years, Baby.... Half of your life and more than half of mine. It feels like a dream.

xoxo spcialk

**I'll post some "Then" photos of us later today if I can figure out the scanner...