I am thankful for my husband.

In October 1999 I was a sophomore at Ricks College in Rexburg. I was starting to come down with something terrible (I had mononucleosis, but wasn't diagnosed yet). I spent most of my free time sleeping in my bedroom and didn't have much of a social life. One Friday night, a group of friends were heading to a local joint for ice cream. I decided to pull myself out of bed and go. When we arrived at the ice cream shop, I felt terrible and realized it was a bad decision to pull myself out of bed. While everyone was up at the counter ordering, I found a quiet corner and laid down on a bench. A few minutes later, a nice young man joined me. He told me he'd ordered me a mint chocolate chip shake, which was/is my all time favorite. He knew me well. He patted my head, which was now laying on the table, and told me that if I didn't eat the shake he'd ordered, it would go to waste because he wasn't going to touch it. Mixing mint and chocolate was/is against his religion. While the rest of our group of friends ate on a big table together, the two of us sat in the corner of the restaurant and talked. I don't remember what we found so funny, but I was laughing so hard at one point that I spit green ice cream all over the table. When he dropped me off at my apartment later that night, I didn't want to get out of his old clunker car. At the time, I didn't know that feeling was love, but I knew that being around him made me feel better.

Fast forward 11 years and one month. Being around this young man still makes me feel better. It wasn't love at first sight or head over heals in a heartbeat, but it is most definitely love. It's been a long week.. with school, meetings, four kids, cleaning, cooking, callings, playing, diaper changing, etc. Last night we were able to sneak away from the kids for a minute and find a quiet corner in a little ice cream (frozen yogurt) shop just a few blocks from our home. We were in our pajamas. He was wearing his red Ricks College shirt and white basketball pants. I was make-up-less, wearing HIS blue swede pajama pants and HIS jacket because they are warmer than anything I own. The conversation was meaningful and a bit silly, which is just how I like it. When we drove home in his car (not so much of a clunker anymore) I was not reluctant to get out because we were going in to OUR home together. All was right in the world.

After we carried our sleeping boys up to their beds, we went into the laundry room where I showed my husband our broken dryer. I spent the afternoon working on it, without any luck. There was a load of wet sheets waiting to be dried and I was hoping he would know what to do. He tapped around for a minute and then turned it on. It started spinning quietly without any problems at all. I tried to explain that it didn't sound like that a few hours prior. In fact, I went as far as imitating the sound the dryer was making earlier. After 10 seconds of demonstrating, I stopped and said, "It sounded just like that, only worse." My husband raised his eyebrows and said, "I am not sure ANYTHING could have sounded worse than that." And then I giggled. I am so thankful for my husband and the relationship we share.