Q. & A.

Chris at Coke on My Keyboard asked a few question and as promised here are the answers.

1: What is my earliest childhood memory? That would be my 4th birthday. I had just finished opening my present and like many 4 year olds I didn't want to share them with anyone. My parents sent me to their room for the rest of my party. My uncle who was just 5 years older than me and cool, snuck into their room and hung out with me.

2: What is my favorite joke? I'm not really good at telling or remembering jokes, so I don't have one.

3: How did my husband and I meet and was it love at first sight? Wow that's a really long story, and to really understand it I have to tell it all so bare with me OK.

In 1994 I was living with my parents with son M ( then 3) and daughter A ( then 1). The ( now) husband, his then wife, and daughter K , moved into the house behind my parents. We had talked a little but not much and I had watched daughter K a few times. At the time I wouldn't of called us friends. In early March of 1995 they went to visit his parents in Iowa. One night on their way home from dinner they were hit by an underage drunk driver. The accident killed his Mom & his then wife, put his Dad into a coma, and he broke his ankle which required surgery. Daughter K was 3 years old at the time so she was in a car seat, as a result she only had a few minor cuts. A few days after we found out about the accident , I was heading to Vegas for a early b-day present from my parents ( my uncle lives there) so I didn't go to the funeral but my parents did and told him where I was.

A few weeks later , the day before Easter that year, I was hiding eggs in the back yard for my kids. He was outside letting the dog out and yelled across the yard asking me how Florida was. I yelled back it wasn't Florida it was Vegas. I wandering over there to strike up a conversation, avoiding the accident/death thing since I figured by then he was tired of hearing about it. We talked a good long while. Over the next several weeks, after he would get home from work,our kids would play together and we would just hang out talking about all kinds of things. We even went out on a few kid dates but nothing we considered a real date, they were just two friends with kids going out.

In May, my Mom became really sick and had surgery for what we thought was gall stones at the time. Only to find out on surgery day, that it was pancreatic cancer and it was one of those where the Dr. said " It's only a matter of time". He stuck by me through all of that, trying to keep my mind off of it as much as possible. In July my parents, kids and I planned a trip to Florida, my Mom wanted to know that her grandkids had been to Disney. The night before we were to leave I was hanging out at his house and that's when he asked me out on our first real date, to take place when I returned. That was also the first time he kissed me. Yes folks he kissed me before our first date and it was one of those toe curling, earth standing still kind of kisses.

The Saturday after I returned we went on our date. We went up to Chicago and just sat on a bench on Navy Pier. We talked and kissed A LOT ! It started raining and after we found a place to hide from it, we found out that there was going to be fireworks, so we stayed there to watch them - all soaking wet. After that we walked back to the car and silly me wore 4 inch heals, so my feet were so sore by then. Once we got there he sat in the car rubbing my feet for over an hour.

Three days later my Mom died and he was there every step of the way again. When the ambulance came ( and there was still hope) he was there, he was there when I got the call from my Dad telling me she was gone ( my kids were sleeping so I stayed home to take care of them, didn't want them to wake up and freak out). He was there during the wake and even took the day off of work to go to the funeral with me. The night of the funeral all of my family was over and I had enough of them telling me how to deal with my Moms death and how to tell the kids. The day after she died I took them to their Dads , without telling them about grandma, so I could focus all my energy for my Dad. Anyway I was sitting outside and I saw him go across the yard to get into his pool and like said I had enough of my family, so I found my Dad told him I was going swimming and where I was going. We swam and laughed, something I really needed right then and there. Then he says to me " What would you do if I asked you to marry me?" . I told him he would find out when he did ask me. Of course at the time I was screaming YES in my mind, but I didn't let him know that.

In September we were going back up to Chicago for a dinner cruise to celebrate by 25th b-day, he was also going to ask me to marry him on the very bench we had our first date on ( yes I knew about it, he loved to tease me about it) . My ring came the last week of August and he couldn't wait another week, so that night he took me upstairs , got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I of course said yes and it couldn't of been more perfect since the day he asked me was also my Moms b-day ( he didn't know at the time) . We still went up to Chicago to celebrate my b-day and our engagement. In December of that year we were married and have been happily married for 13 years now.

For the second part of that question : Was it love at first sight? No and yes. No because the first time we saw each other he was married. And yes because we both agree that the first time we talked that Saturday before Easter, was the trigger that started us to fall in love.