My next prompt (#3) is to “Describe your relationship with your spouse.” Where do I start? I think Raven described how we met in her write-up, but I might add a few more details.

When Raven asked me out, I was shocked, as she said, because a few days or weeks before I saw her out my dorm window. She was down on the grass outside our building taking pictures on a date with someone. I thought she was drop-dead gorgeous. I remember thinking, “Well, there goes another one.” There was no chance she would be interested in me. She already had a guy, apparently.

So, a few days or weeks later (I can’t remember how much time elapsed from that first sighting), when I received her asking out to the Preference dance, I was floored. Why would she want to go out with me? She had her guy, I remembered. Was it the same girl? I looked her up in the ward directory. Yup, from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. A real latina. Same girl I saw before. Maybe it didn’t work out with that guy? Who knew.

And then I started getting really nervous. I mean, this was one beautiful girl! Would I make a fool of myself? Would she even enjoy the date if I said yes? All those questions started going through my mind.

Like Raven said, our first date to Preference was fantastic, probably one of the best dates I had ever been on. We hit it off from the start. I still remember singing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the top of our lungs in the car while we were driving from place to place on that date. It was magic. Not only was she one of the cutest girls I’d ever seen, but she was fun, friendly, and seemed to like being with me. I couldn’t believe it.

After that, things went pretty smooth. Of course, I was still nervous, but Raven helped me along. Until…. drum roll…. we were married! It’s been almost 10 years ago, a decade, in April.

How has it been since then? I couldn’t imagine a more loving, compassionate, warm, happy, pleasant, giving, fun, encouraging, humble, beautiful companion than Raven. She continually surprises me by her optimism. She can somehow always see the silver lining in things, which helps me a lot when I’m down. She is a great example to me, and teaches me a lot about how I should be. She loves people, I mean genuinely loves people, like I’ve rarely seen before. She cares deeply about them, every person near to her. Where she is more outgoing and socially adept, I’m more introverted and like alone time. So we balance each other out well that way. She is an amazing mother, even though she won’t admit it. Her first priority, every day, all day, while I’m at work, is our four children. She gives herself entirely to them. Sometimes I think she goes above and beyond the call of motherhood, but I’m very grateful for her deep desire to raise our children right. She is very concerned that our children get the right education, and will go to whatever means necessary to ensure it, including moving them around to different schools or even home school until it feels right.

One of the things I love best about Raven is that she almost always is in a happy, positive mood, and that helps lift me up when I’m down. I don’t know how she does it, but she always has a smile on her face, and that brings a good spirit to everyone in her surroundings.

We’ve had a blast these last ten years together. We’ve been over some rocky road together (who hasn’t), but we’ve clung to each other and pulled through to the other side. We take one day at a time, and look forward to fun times in the future. We try to focus on having great experiences together, things that we can remember, and that we can point back to when times are rough. We do our best in raising our children, although we feel woefully inadequate at the task. We treasure the time we spend time together in the evenings, about the only time we have to spend together every day. Kids go down at 7pm, and then it’s Mommy and Daddy time. Every day. We love it. And it’s good for the kids too, I think.

I don’t know how I was so blessed to find Raven, and get married to her, but I count it as one of the luckiest blessings in my life.

Liam turned 3 months old on Wednesday. 3 months! I can’t even believe it. At 3 months, Liam sleeps through the night (a miracle–he’s my first baby to sleep through the night this young), sucks his thumb, rolls over from his back to his tummy, laughs and smiles, and melts my heart on a constant basis. He’s just the sweetest thing.

Sometimes his bottom lip disappears.

My little love.

At the risk of sounding like a total jerk, today’s prompt is:

List your top ten pet peeves.

10! That seems like a lot. I’m only going to list five. Ten just seems excessive. Let’s see here…

1. When you get home from the store and your bananas have gotten smooshed. Major bummer.

2. When I’m on the phone and all of my children suddenly need my attention RIGHT NOW! Seriously.

3. When the technology we’ve become so spoiled by doesn’t work like it should.

4. When people drive way under the speed limit.

5. When people wear those Bluetooth headsets all the time. I understand wearing it when you’re working and you need to use your hands–great. But all the time? 24/7? I saw a family walking around CostCo the other day and both parents had ear pieces on. Are you really that important? Maybe I’m just too old-fashioned.

There. Done sounding like a jerk.

So, when I play around with our Etch A Sketch, I do amazing things like make staircases and trees. My skills are limited. However, Amelie seems to have some kind of natural gift for it. Without spending much time on it in the past, she whipped it out last week and produced these:

A cat. (Calder added his car for effect)

A waving monkey.

Today she made this one:

Standing cat.

There’s something strangely compelling about these little drawings. They don’t take her very long either. I guess this is what these toys are meant for. My vision for the possibilities has just always been fenced in by my lack of ability and patience.

And this is where the fact that this is my only form on journaling is highlighted. We’re only a third of the way through this list of prompts–you’re stuck reading about me for a while to come. I’ll try to post some cute pictures of the kids soon to break it up.

Today’s prompt:

What was your most embarrassing moment? 

Other than the fact that I’m an English M.A. and still need to look up “embarrassing” to see if I’m spelling it right?

The embarrassing moment that stands out to me is something that happened 7 years ago, when I was pregnant with Amelie. This moment was embarrassing not because of what other people saw me do, but because of what I knew I had done. At the time, we lived in Provo and every morning I took the bus up to BYU campus to attend class and teach my Intro. to Writing and Rhetoric courses. This particular day, I got dressed in my khaki maternity slacks and a light blue maternity blouse, grabbed a light jacket, and hopped on the bus. Well, I probably didn’t hop. I was pregnant, after all. But that’s what people always say, right? Anyway, I got on the bus, sat down, and as we drove through south Provo, I came to an awful realization. (At this point, I’d like to warn any men reading this blog that we are entering female territory. But I actually don’t think many men read my blog, so this shouldn’t be a major inconvenience.)

I wasn’t wearing a bra.

Thank you, pregnancy-induced absent mindedness. Although, the number of times I’ve locked myself out of my car would suggest that it isn’t strictly pregnancy related.

Here I was, on my way to teach class, and I had no bra on. Now, for some women, this might not be a big deal. But I am not exactly, how to put this lightly, flat chested. In my embarrassment, I said a little prayer thanking Heavenly Father for the jacket I had decided to bring with me and for the fact that today was a library day, which meant that I wouldn’t actually be lecturing in front of the class. We’d be in a dimly lit library computer lab. Thank heavens for small tender mercies.

I don’t think anyone ever suspected my embarrassment, but I was definitely embarrassed on the inside. It sure made for a funny story later that night when Bryce came home, though. Guess I’m not made out for the life of a bra-burning feminist. Shucks.