james

It’s only a year (or so) late, but I finally had some free time to do the Christmas video from 2007. It’s odd to watch this one now, having just seen a much older Nolan experience Christmas this year.

All of us were sick, so this is probably the most no frills video you’ll ever see from us. I could barely stay awake to hold the camera, and it shows. There are still some funny moments as this is the first Christmas where Nolan could speak well and started to get Christmas.

Enjoy!

…have someone else do it.

That was our plan today at least. Melanie and others have been pestering me very subtly reminding me that we don’t have a family picture with Griffin in it. Based on my efforts to take pictures of just Mel and Nolan, I knew better than to try taking pictures of all four of us. Fortunately, one of our friends just happened to open a studio just this week, so we headed down to check out the studio (color me jealous) and try to sneak in a family portrait.

Griffin and Nolan gave us 5 or 6 good minutes, but that’s all we needed. Here is one of our favorites from the day. Thanks to Chris (Ivey Photography) for taking the time for us today.

For three years now, Nolan and Melanie have visited Santa at Northpark without me. This year, I decided to take the day off to see the spectacle for myself. The original plan was to spend the morning at Northpark and have the afternoon free to finish up decorating for Christmas. That was the plan at least. We decided it would be best for Nolan and I to head down to Northpark early to get our number as soon as possible – Melanie and Griffin would head down when we were about an hour away from our number being called. In theory it was a good plan. In theory, we could get it all done by noon.

I grabbed Nolan and headed for the door just after 8:30am. He was in a good mood and seemed excited to see Santa. We were running late, but I thought we’d be ok because rush hour would be over by the time we got to 75. Three traffic jams and and hour later, we finally arrived at Northpark. It was just before 10am. Maybe we’d still be make it out by noon. We breezed through Nordstrom and made our way to Santa’s temporarily leased retail space Village, which is located directly across from the Apple Store.

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Well, after that, I’d be a bit of a heel if I didn’t write an equally wonderful post about our anniversary, wouldn’t I? Like Melanie said, we met Junior year at Plano. To this day I think I could draw a seating chart of our table at Bennigan’s only because I remember where Melanie was sitting. I didn’t grow up in Plano, so I never felt like I quite fit in. As a self-absorbed, sulky teenager, I wondered (often aloud) why I had to go to school in the Texas equivalent of Brandon and Brenda Walsh’s West Beverly High (that’s a 90210 reference for those playing along). I have to admit, no one was more surprised than me when I ended up marrying a lifelong Plano girl. She wasn’t born in Plano, so at least I’ve got that going for me.

I’m not a big believer in fate, but it’s hard for me to think I came here for any other reason than to meet Melanie. The rest of my family has since moved back to Arkansas, but I stayed here with Melanie. I think that’s how it was supposed to be, and I couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out.

I won’t rehash the high school portion of our story because I don’t think I could top Melanie’s account of it. I feel lucky to have met Melanie when I did, and I’m happy we got to spend our college years together (college = another story for another post(s)). Had we met any earlier, who knows what might have happened. But we didn’t, and we’ve been together since 1993. That means I was making actual mix tapes for Melanie on cassette rather than making iPod playlists. We could stay out later than we should have because there were no cell phones to keep track of us. We could drive to New Mexico for a weekend because gas was around $.99/gal. The original version of 90210 was on the air, and some guy named Seinfeld had a show about nothing. Tech was still in the Southwest Conference, which no longer exists. In other words, times have changed a lot, but we’ve stayed together through it all and if she’ll put up with me, I think we’re in it for the long haul.

Happy Anniversary Melanie! Hopefully we’ll be writing these posts from somewhere in Napa Valley next year (heads up, grandparents).

James and I met in the Fall of our Junior year in high school. One of my best friends had been in the high school play and a large group of friends had gathered at Bennigans’ after the play to celebrate and have a late dinner. My best friend, Cara, was dating James’ best friend, Chris. Both of us had been invited to this dinner by our respective friends. I noticed James from across the table and whispered to Cara asking who James was (remember we went to school with 1500 students in our class so it was not uncommon to not know people in your grade). She told me who he was, but also mentioned he was there with his girlfriend. I actually was dating someone as well, but my curiosity was raised. A “spark” was there! Briefly after that, introductions were made around the table, but “that was that.” Ironically I learned from James later that he had asked Chris about me as well, but obviously the timing was not right.

Fast forward a year and a half later. Prom was approaching and neither James or I had a date as we were no longer with our boy/girl friends. Our friends Cara and Chris were still dating and began plotting that James and I would make a great date for each other. James and I had “bumped” into each other quite a bit during a Senior year because we both were in choir. We had become acquaintances, but nothing really more than that. When Cara asked my thoughts on James and the possibility of going to prom with him, I liked the idea and said I would certainly go with him if asked. In typical high school “fashion” she passed along the information to Chris who passed it along to James. Several days later after choir, James was waiting for me in the hall. He asked “to talk to me for a minute.” He then went on to ask me to go to prom with him. Considering how shy James was, this was HUGE for him. It was also quite a first date request….prom! Of course, he already knew I was going to say yes! Because prom was still several months away, James and I spent that time going on dates and getting to know each other. We had so much fun and really enjoyed spending time with each other. We had so much fun at prom too and it was a great way to end our Senior year (Side note…I will try to find our prom picture and post it. Wow have we changed)

James and I spent the summer before college together. I had already decided I was going to Texas Tech. During that summer James decided to go visit Tech as well as he was still undecided about college. After a visit to Lubbock he made his decision to attend as well. I have ALWAYS said he made that decision because of me, but he disagrees. We ended dating all through college and while I went to graduate school.

James proposed on July 4th, 2008 in St. George Island, Florida on the beach at night on bended knee. We were there vacationing with our closest college friends. After the proposal, we went back to the beach house where our friends were waiting to celebrate the news! It was perfect

We were married a little over a year later after dating for six years. So here we are 15 years later. I don’t think either one of us would have thought WAY BACK THEN that we would now be living in suburbia with two children and living the American dream so to speak! Our wild and crazy college days have been replaced with Friday night after dinner walks with our kids and two dogs. Amazing and unbelievable!

James and I both agree we are lucky to have a really good solid marriage where we have so much to be thankful for in our lives. So James….Happy Anniversary! I love you! Here’s to all that is to come!