Gosh, where do I begin? Well, at the beginning, I suppose…

We’re high school sweethearts, having gone on our first date at the tender ages of 15 1/2 and 16 1/2 — and it was the only first date I have ever had. Not many girls can say that, and I consider myself so fortunate that I can.

He is and always has been my everything–even as my polar opposite. In high school, I was the book smart nerdy geeky girl, doing everything by the rules–he was the guy who skipped classes and entire school days and did everything he could to break the rules. We went on that first date and that’s all it took. Head over heels in love. He got done high school and worked, I had another year to go. Then I graduated and went an hour and half away to college for 4 years. And still, we stayed together. I came home on the weekends and worked. We lived together for my last 2 years of college.

We got married the same summer I graduated from college; I took my registry board exam on our honeymoon. And then it was time for our adventure to really begin. We moved to a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA and started our married life together. I worked 2nd shift, he worked during the days, so those were some rocky waters to navigate, but we managed. He would stay up and wait for me to get home on Friday nights and we’d go grocery shopping together and to the Eat N Park restaurant for “breakfast" afterwards. We discovered the city and surrounding area together, and had so much fun.

We moved from our apartment and into a duplex, and 3 years after our “I dos", two became three as we welcomed our first baby boy. We spent the first year of his life in that cozy little space, building our family bond over the course of a year. We quickly realized, however, that it was tough raising a little all on our own, without any family support nearby. We had a lovely neighbor that was like a surrogate grammie to us, as well as my college roommate’s mom who lived about half an hour away. Just not quite the same, though. So we moved back to NH and set up shop in Andover, not far from where we grew up (and the town that my family actually got it’s start). And two years later, we welcomed our second baby boy. And our little family of four was complete.

Fast forward to today. In between, there was a business built and handed down to the eldest, there was camp on the lake purchased, property purchased where we built the home we now live in, there were a few jobs for me, our home away from home in the Florida Keys was purchased, and all the other life stuff that goes along with adulting, sprinkled with the hectic craziness of raising two busy boys into men. One thing we never, ever did, though: we never stopped dating one another. We traveled as a couple (a benefit to being closer to family). We turned mundane errand runs into fun date days. We chased each other around the house. We held hands, we kissed, we loved. It hasn’t always been easy. It hasn’t always been puppies and rainbows and amazingness. We’ve had hard times. Really hard times. We’ve had fights. Big fights. But the other thing we never, ever did was give up on us or each other. We’ve worked. A LOT. It’s probably the hardest thing we’ve done other than raising two children. And now, we have an empty nest, but somehow it doesn’t seem so empty, because we have each other–we’re back to where we started. We’ve grown up together, we’ve grown together, and we’re growing old together. Wait, OLD??? Who agreed to THAT? We may be getting older, but we’re getting better and still crazy (about each other) after all these years.