April Fools and St. George

It is amazing how times flies and life moves forward. Jaime and I have been married for 10 years. Just a few weeks ago marks the 11th year anniversary of when Jaime and I first kissed. I remember it vividly. We had been "dating" for a couple of weeks. I had recently gone on a trip to St. George with Jaime and her friends Beth and "Jianne". I was falling fast for Jaime and things were great. One night , April 1st, 1996 to be exact, Beth said that she needed to go to the library on campus at BYU and had asked if we wanted to go also. We didn't need to go but decided that it might be fun to ride along. After staying at the library for a little while, Jaime and I decided to take a walk back to her house. It was probably a couple of miles, but the weather was nice. It was a little warm out at night but still cool enough to let you know that it was springtime too. I remember thinking that I really wanted to kiss her. But, being the awkward Cassanova that I am (was?) I didn't quite know how to make my move. As we neared her house, my heart raced knowing that the moment had come. She had a house full of roommates and the moment would soon be lost. At the bend in the road that curved around to her house, we wandered a little off the sidewalk and shared our first kiss.

I remember a conscious thought that I had that night. I remember thinking that I had just kissed the greatest girl in the world. Due to my ever present paranoid state, I began to worry. I thought of the significance of April 1st and worried that to her it might have been an April's Fools joke or that somehow the very significance of that date would jinx any future that I might have with her. But as the weeks passed, I saw that it was not a joke to her and it certainly was not a joke to me. It was by all means one of the best nights of my life. It was the night where I started down a life path with the woman that I love.

For Easter, Jaime gave me this really great frame for my office. In it are two pictures. They are both pictures of us during the "St. George" days. The first is in front of this great looking purple car that we thought would be fun to buy. The second is in the garden of her father and step mother's home. St. George always reminds me of when our relationship blossomed and when I truly fell in love with the best, brightest, most beautiful, funniest woman in the world.