24 years ago today...............

Waaay back in 1987 I was in the military, just coming back from vacation the first week in January. As I was standing in line at the bank, I felt this electrical charge, and turned around to look straight into a pair of beautiful baby blues. 

 Looked at his name tag and patches on his uniform and seen he was in my squadron. By that time I was up next in line.  When I went back to the dorm I went to see my buddy who was in charge of checking us in and out, and asked him if he knew anything about Airman "baby blues" he told me he was a new guy, only been there a few days. He lived 4 buildings over and told me where he worked too. Well over the next few months we seemed to play cat and mouse with each other. Everytime I drove downtown, looked in my rear view mirror, there he was behind me. I would follow him here and there too. I would hang out in his hallway every now and then ( I knew everyone else that lived there anyway) just so when he came home I could say hello. I loved to see him get a HUGE grin on his face, his face would turn beet red, and he would hurry to his room. He was soooo shy!!

Now it is May memorial weekend is coming up and there are 14 of us that want to go camping and to Six flags for the long weekend. Myself and baby blues were the only 2 people on grave shift that could get all the camping equipment and all the tickets so we were volunteered to do everything. Everyday that week we would meet at the chow hall for breakfast when we got off work, we would stay till they kicked us out, just talking about whatever. Then we would be back an hour later for lunch, talking till we got kicked out again. We would go get a nap, and meet back once again for dinner, and talk till we got kicked out yet for the 3rd time that day. Then get a few more hours sleep before we both had to go to work that night, and then repeat the same thing tomorrow. We did this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Collecting money from everyone during lunch or between meals. So on Friday morning we could go get all the tickets and gear as soon as the recreation place opened for business. It was a first come first serve type place. We had to get everything for 14 of us.

Come Friday evening when everyone else got off work, we all met up, handed out gear and started loading up to leave. He kinda had a girlfriend at the time, her name was also Ann Marie....LOL. Well she didn't want to ride with him, she wanted to ride in another vehicle with 3 other guys. So off we go. By the time we got to the campground, it was really really late, and we were exhausted. It was starting to get a little chilly where we were, so to keep warm since we only had one jacket between us and were too tired to find a sleeping bag, I sat in his lap and we used the jacket as a blanket to crash. 30 minutes into our nap we get a knock on the window, asking us what we were doing, weren't we setting up camp. We said nope, too tired going back to sleep. Sleep we did too.

The next morning while cleaning up in the restroom, his so called girlfriend came up to me and told me she was going to fight for him, and I told her I had no idea what she was talking about. Tried to explain, but she was one of those. No explaining to this girl...nope nope nope. She didn't want to ride with him in the first place. Oh well. We are going to have fun today, and go to the amusement park. So off we go.

When we got to the park, we had all agreed to stay together. Well as soon as the "can't explain anything to you soon to be ex girlfriend" entered the park, she grabbed 2 of the guys hands and took off running, so everyone just started grabbing hands with whoever was behind them, to try and stay together.....!  She ran clear to the other side of the park. Well when we finally stopped, and I went to pull my hand from baby blues, he squeezed my hand instead. We were at the back of the pack. I asked what about "her". He said that is over, and has been for a while. (he had explained during the week). COOL, I thought to myself.

We knew we were getting married, didn't set a date, just tried to scrape enough quarters together to get us 3 hours up the mountain to Reno, figured we could coast back down if we were almost out of gas, and call for help if we ran out when we were almost back to base. When we finally had enough coins scraped together, off we went, we eloped!

So we first laid eyes on each other around the 7th of January, started dating the 31st of May, got engaged the 16th of July (without him even asking me to marry him) and got married the 21st of September. 24 years ago today!!! Wow, where has the time gone???  I married my best friend, and somehow we both knew that day at the bank, that is where we were going to be down the road.

What is our secret............communication, communication,communication!!!