Our Happy Anniversary

On March 4th we celebrated 9 years together.  

For our anniversary I decided to surprise Sullivan with nine different things that I fondly remembered from our days of courtship.  The first thing I did was to send him a lunchtime e-mail.  At the beginning of the e-mail I wrote:  "I remember very well coming home from work for lunch, practically running into the house, quickly grabbing something to eat and bringing it directly to the computer with great anticipation of receiving an e-mail from you and then sending one off to you before I would return to work.  I loved those e-mails.  The anticipation of receiving a message from you was so great I could think of nothing else from the time I left work for lunch until I would get to my computer."  I then proceeded to share some of my thoughts and feelings about the past 9 years together.

When Sullivan came home from work he walked in with a beautiful bouquet of red roses and baby's breath (baby's breath is my favorite flower) for me and a beautiful card inscribed with a personal and heartfelt note. 

Our anniversary fell on a Tuesday which is our shopping day.  I decided that for the second thing from our courtship days we would hold hands while we were out shopping together.  Holding hands was not only something we did during our courtship days, but it also had a more significant meaning.  Sullivan and I met online on LDS mingle, therefore we did not physically meet for two months. The first time we did hold hands was a very special occasion for me because for the very first time in my life my hand and someone else's hand fit perfectly together. Perhaps I gave this experience a little more weight than it called for, but I was quite sure at the time that it was "a sign".  

The third thing I did was to institute, for a two hour period, a no kissing rule.  Well not exactly no kissing because we could do butterfly kisses (with eye lashes) or Eskimo kisses with our noses.  We both well remember these from our courtship days because we had decided early on that we would not kiss before we were married.  So we held hands and gave each other lots of butterfly and Eskimo kisses!  Our first kiss on the lips occurred on our wedding day.

For the fourth remembrance I gave Sullivan a chocolate eclair for desert.  When we were dating Sullivan told me one of his favorite treats was eclairs so that was the first dessert I gave him while we were courting.

The fifth and sixth surprises were to wear a dress that he bought me while we were dating and then to dance together like we did while we were courting.  Prior to our wedding day we practiced our dance moves before we were to dance together at our reception.  

The seventh item was to read some excerpts from "The Story Of Us."   This was one of two books of remembrance that Sullivan made for us.  It is a compilation of stories, e-mail exchanges and other documentations describing our entire courtship from our very first interaction on LDS Mingle (including a printout of each of our online profiles), to the beginning days of marriage (in the second addition of "The Story Of Us").

The eighth item was remembrances from our wedding night and honeymoon.    

The last remembrance was a follow-up e-mail the next day.  In the e-mail I wrote:

"After your weekend visits, when we were courting, I was always super-excited to hear back from you about our time together.  I would be missing having you in person and would get caught up in the anticipation of hearing from you again."  

I then proceeded to recap our wonderful night together in which we celebrated our love and appreciation for each other.  It truly was a Happy Anniversary! 

* Incidentally, our original plan for our anniversary was to go to a local spa for a couple's massage. The earliest we could get in was March 21st.  We are looking forward to getting those massages soon.