A Decade of Love: My Birthday, Then and Now

September 10, 2005, my 22nd birthday. Justin took me on a little boat ride up to Jordanelle. We floated around the lake, listening to music and eating food. Justin surprised me with Rob Thomas' new CD and tickets to his concert. Then we drove back to Provo to eat dinner at Ottavio's. Remember Ottavio's? I'm still sad they closed.

My awesome roommate Megan made me this awesome Oreo cake. I must have been obsessed with Oreos then. Sometimes I do that.

 Oh man, so young.

 My roommates Shannon and Megan.

Fast forward to 2015. I picked up this little beauty at a bakery in Provo. I love me a good cinnamon roll. My birthday plans pretty much only involve what food I want to eat that day.

Maybe it wasn't so little.

Then while Erica took a nap, I played no less than six games of Guess Who with this great kid. He loves this game and I love playing it with him. He has memorized nearly half of the people's names since he can't read.

Justin and I took the kids to Nadine and then went to dinner at the Bombay House (please don't close, we have the worst luck with our favorite restaurants closing). We decided to order 3 entrees between the two of us because we want to try new dishes but can't not order our favorites. The couple next to us ordered one entree to split between the two of them. Pfff. Amateurs. In our defense, we didn't eat it all right then. Our conversation consisted of yummy noises and comments of how delicious our food was.

My mom made my favorite homemade cake, German chocolate. Gosh it's so good. I could drink the frosting.

 Look who I'm surrounded by now to blow out my candles. Pretty awesome.

It's Official

Justin got this yesterday.

It's his engineering license.

That's right, Justin is now Justin Dye, PE (Professional Engineer)

Sarah didn't understand what the big deal was but she gave Justin a hug anyway.

After 6 years of school, 3 years of work, a monster of an exam, and a rather complex application process, he can now stamp his own plans, hang is own shingle.

But for now he just wants to go out for an expensive and delicious meal to celebrate. And buy some hunting gear.

Some Other Things that Happened in August

One time Erica let me do her hair.

 Doesn't she look so grown up? She hasn't let me do it since.

On Sarah's summer bucket list was have a cookie stand. She sold 40 sugar cookies in less than an hour and made $10. "Can I sell more cookies tomorrow?" She had no idea how much time it took for me to bake and frost 40 sugar cookies. I told her no.

My mom and dad came home from their mission in Philadelphia. I did not get any good pictures of them or their homecoming. Sorry.

 I didn't even get one of them together or with their knowledge.

Here's what was left of their welcome home sign on the day of their homecoming. I liked that the corner my kids did survived. That's Henry's drawing on right.

 Do you know how hard it is to get 3 kids to look at the camera at the same time with decent smiles?

 Especially when one of those kids is Henry.

 Erica went to nursery for the first time. I wanted to get a picture of her with her drawing she kind of scribbled on.

 She wanted nothing to do with it. Kind of like her overall feelings toward nursery.

In another important Erica milestone, she now feeds herself breakfast. Instead of me spending 20 minutes spoon feeding her, she spends 35 minutes feeding herself.

 Her technique needs some improvement.

 Bwahaha. Someone so cute sure can look super goofy.

Building a fort out of the couch cushions was another summer bucket item. Henry had a fever this day and fell asleep at 10:30 and stayed there for a few hours.

So we built another fort in the kitchen. I sure miss having Sarah around all day. She is Erica's favorite.

I don't have to do much for Erica because Sarah is always right there doting on her. Now that she's in school all day, Erica and I aren't quite sure how to deal with it.

On Sarah's first day of school, Erica found Sarah's gloves and wore them for quite awhile.

 Ever since Henry went to the demolition derby he's been having his own derbies with his toy cars. "Want to watch my demolition derby, Mom?" Imagine the sound effects.

 He also learned to ride a 2-wheeler. This kid totally skipped over the training wheel phase. He's kind of crazy on this thing but surprisingly hasn't had any bad spills (yet).

Here's a little preview of what Henry wants to be for Halloween. He's added a sword and he wants to add his superhero cape.

 And finally Erica loves hummus.

 She just kept eating and eating and getting it everywhere. She only used two crackers and managed to get it between her toes.

Sarah's First Day of First Grade

The first day of school is like a holiday around here. Not because we do anything special but because Sarah is so dang excited.

She reminds me of Where's Waldo with her lunch box.

Yes, I'm that mom that takes pictures of them hanging up their backpack.

 And of them sitting at their desk.

I watched the clock all day long. All-day school is long! I asked Henry 5 times if he missed Sarah yet. He said no as he was playing with all the mega blocks and later watching the Kindle all to himself. Luckily he had Erica to play with.

After school, she told me all about her day while eating some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I decided to be that mom 40 minutes before the bus dropped her off {{Patting self on back}}.

I missed her and my day felt so weird and I didn't get much done because everything just felt off. I'll have to get used to another new normal.

I'm just grateful she had a great first day.

Erica is 18 Months Old

I love her and her goofy teeth.

Likes: Grapes, peaches, watermelon, bread, any kind of candy or treat, playing in her sister's room, being outside doing anything, getting pushed around in the stroller, wagon, or jelly bean, dancing to music, singing loudly to herself during Sunday school, pretending to read books, Ring-Around-the-Rosies, playing blocks and puzzles, her blanket and Snuggle Bear, wrestling, songs with actions, acting annoyed when I try to get her out of her crib after her nap, running from the kitchen to the couch and back again, running on the couch, when I pretend her feet are stinky and make a big deal out of it, splashing in the bathtub and flooding the floor, stuffed animals and dolls.

Dislikes: Not being with me, strangers, some family members (don't take it personally), food that she loved yesterday, church, changing her clothes, when the other kids get in trouble, going to bed, waking up.

Words she says: Meh for Mom, ca for car, ca-cuh for cracker, suss for shoes, eh! for give it to me/I want it/I don't like what's going on/get me out of here/Henry is too close/what you're feeding me is gross/where's Mom?/take me outside. Seess for cheese. There may be a few others. She jabbers all the time and understands everything so I'm not too worried she can only say a handful of words.

She's pretty good scooting on her jelly bean racer but can't get on and off it herself. She can twirl, walk backwards and run pretty fast. She's figured out how to climb onto the couch and get back down. I don't worry about her at all on the stairs.

She's pretty much a goofball. It's fun to see her personality come out. She's a little sassy but can be so sweet and funny.

A Decade of Love: Our First Date

A girl can't have a group of guy friends forever. Either they start dating girls and you're no longer welcome. Or you start dating someone and the group no longer feels welcome. But if you marry one of the guys, they're all your friends forever.....

This was my reasoning behind taking a risk and dating Justin. Not that he'd asked me out or anything. I liked him and I knew he knew. After a day of misunderstandings the week after we came back from Ferron, we had a good talk about the misunderstanding and the conversation ended like "Do you think we should date?" "Yeah" "Um, I'm free Friday??" "Okay."

Exactly 10 years ago today, he picked me up at my apartment and we got in the truck and he turns to me and asks, "Where would you like to eat?" Note to all you single ladies: If he doesn't plan the first date, he's not a big date planner. Are you okay with that? It didn't bother me at all then and it doesn't bother me now but it's a tell-tale sign. (Justin is actually a much better planner of dates now since it takes a lot of cooperation on many people's parts to do anything without kids.)

I suggested Goodwood just up the hill in Orem so that's where we went. I hate eating with my fingers on first dates so I don't know why I chose that place. Was it new then? Fingerfoods and barbecue sauce, messy messy.

We talked about school and what we wanted to be when we graduated. I had just a year left before I got my degree in broadcast journalism. He was contemplating being a therapist or an engineer designing cars. (Interesting huh? Especially since he became neither. When did you decide on civil engineering, Justin?) I don't remember any other specific topic of conversation.

We left the restaurant and got into the truck and he turns to me and asks, "What do you want to do now?" By then I had wondered what he was contemplating for the 36 hours since I asked him to ask me out. I suggested we drive a windy and bumpy road that goes from Provo Canyon to Hobble Creek Canyon. It takes a couple of hours but it's a really cool drive. We talked the whole time and the conversation never lagged or got awkward. I never got tired of him either.

So there you have it, our first date.

Here are the first pictures of "us." Moss was going away for a semester in England so we had a going away party. This was actually at the end of August but I didn't think a separate post for that is necessary. Plus that's the story behind the pictures: "Moss was going away for a semester..."

And Shannon was my roommate now! That was the best.

 Can you feel the love?

 Just some of the boys. I married into a brotherhood of 9.

And here we are 10 years later. 

Tonight we went out to dinner to commemorate our last first dates of our lives. First we tried to go to a new restaurant but it was already shut down. I was disappointed at first but we probably dodged a bullet there. Next we tried Goodwood to recreate that first date magic but that too was shut down. What the what? So we ended up at the tried and true Carabbas. We discussed mortgage interest rates and retirement accounts.

Then we went to the mall to remind ourselves just how not 15 we are. I went to the bathroom with the most obnoxious teenage girls ever that felt they to run all four sinks to mask the sounds of them doing their business. And they couldn't stop talking about some boy in the food court. When I lamented this to Justin he says, "Come on, you were like that too."

"I never wasted water!"

Then we stopped at a photobooth because they are a big part of my early teen years and I was feeling nostalgic.

Yup, still got it. Oh man, it makes me laugh.

Next time on A Decade of Love, 22-year-old Diana tackles these questions: Can you know you're going to marry someone before you know you're in love? How many tacos can Justin eat? How can we hang out together every spare moment and not fail college?