9 years and counting...

Well, it's official, I finally made it to my 100th post! I would have liked to get here sooner, but let's just say it's been a really crazy hectic year!

So, to mark this special occasion as well as our ninth anniversary which was just this past week on the 7th, I thought I'd finally post the story of how Andy and I met. It's a bit of a long read, but this one goes in the books for the grandchildren!

It all began back at an army base in Quebec City 18 years ago (OMG, do I feel old!) in a medical tent. Yes, I was in the army, the story behind that was simply that I wanted to become a doctor and was informed that I could do it through the army and get paid for it, how cool was that, only...I ended up always being the patient so that didn't work out for me so well!

So, it was a reallllly hot day and we had been doing this I don't know how many crazy number of kilometers march and I, of course, had not broken in my combat boots, big big mistake. Once we finally stopped for a quick inhalation of food followed by a foot inspection, let's just say the boots were literally peeled off my bloody skin and I was sent of the medical tent. They did a quick little surgery to pull off some excess skin (yes, it was yucky, sorry!) and I was then pretty much knocked out on a recovery cot at the back of the tent.

When I woke up, I opened my eyes to find this guy on the cot next to me sitting and staring at me and then said, "you're really cute when you sleep!" First thing coming to my mind was first in for all who the heck is this guy, and second, how long has he been staring at me! We were from different regiments so we then shot out the usual remarks about each other in a commaradic way of course and then ended up talking and hanging out for a few hours while waiting for our platoons to come and pick us up, (oh, btw, he was there for a really bad migraine). So when it was time for me to go, I offered him my oreo cookies that I didn't want from the snacks they provided to us and that was that.

A few months had gone by, and then it all began. The first few encounters with fellow soldiers from his regiment played out like, them seeing my name on my uniform, followed by, "oh, do you know this guy named...his last name...", and once I said yes, "oh, he spent the day in the medical with you, and he thinks you're hot and wants you to have his babies!" The first time, this completely caught me off guard and totally caused me to blush like ten shades of red! You have to keep in mind, when we met, we both had respective others, of whom we even talked about to each other, and, I also had been in the field for a few days with no real shower, was covered in bug bites, and full of cam (aka war paint) on my face and hadn't glanced in a mirror for about a week, so basically, I'm talking, NOT A PRETTY SITE!

So this went on for some time, for about two years to be exact, to the point of whenever I would run into members of his regiment and they would recognize my name, I would finish their sentences for them by saying, "yes I know him and I don't want to hear it". Until....well let me line up the scenario for you, for a while I was working in the admin office at my regiment, there were a lot of guys from the regiments in Montreal gone overseas with the UN for peacekeeping in Bosnia. One day, by chance of course, glancing through the list, wouldn't I come across his name. Of course recognizing it, I knew he was over there.

Whenever somebody wanted to mail a package out to our guys overseas, it had to come through the regiment to be inspected and meet the specifications and such. Well one afternoon, a wife of one of our guys had come in, she was deaf and mute, my Sergeant didn't have the time of day for her and she left the building in tears. I immediately grabbed a pen and paper and ran after her telling her that he had actually called that day and spoke with me and told me to let her know that he loved her and to send more coffee! Let's just say that from then on, she only dealt with me.

So the day came when this guy had returned and immediately approached me to tell me he owed me a two four (an army thing of course, I actually don't even like or drink beer!) for taking care of his wife and then he told me to sit down and that he had something to talk to me about, followed by asking me if I was single! He then informed me that he had spent the past six months overseas with this guy from another regiment that relentlessly kept asking what he knew about me...take one guess who that would be??? You guessed it, it was Andy. He then told me that he promised him that if they both made it back that he would have me call him! Talk about speechless! Well, I was holding a welcome back party that weekend for the guys so I got his number through a friend of a friend who ran into him and mentioned that I was looking for it and who thought I was so lucky when she heard the story.

So I did end up calling him, invited him to the party, we played a game of pool which I played really terribly, I was a nervous wreck, he drove me home, I gave him my number and the rest is history! Apparently I had him with my oreos!!

I do totally agree that I was and am so lucky and blessed to have met somebody who has become my husband, my best friend and the best father to our wonderful little girls! That party was fifteen years ago and we've been together ever since, and married for nine of those years. I'm looking forward to the next 15 years and more, I love you boo and happy anniversary!