Memories of Us

Today is my husband’s birthday. There was no cake with sprinkles, no picking out a lobster to eat and watching Tom scarfing down everything in sight at Red Lobster, and no trip to Jax to peruse the gear we need for our bunker. So we are postponing the celebration until he gets back, as with most things during this deployment. I did sleep in for him, and I did go to Red Lobster but I was pretty conservative on my lunch. I just didn’t want to end up like this after a seafood overload…

It does stink to have holidays come and go and not be able to make new memories with each other.

I guess you could say though we are still making memories, they just aren’t the traditional ones most people are having. These months have been difficult, but it has given us strength and an experience to be really proud of.

And sometimes the memories are all we have to get us through this last little bit.

So in honor of Tom’s birthday, I thought of memories from our relationship to highlight his 28 years. I promise it won’t get to mushy.

Meeting at Worlds of Fun both as supervisors of our respective departments-later to hear that Tom used to find excuses to come into the park to see me before he asked me out. One being a park wide power outage and “happening” to come to the ride where I was coordinating an emergency evacuation.
The whole asking me out scenario-He had just pulled over my brother for running a stop sign and thought Randall had stolen my car. Then as Tom was asking me out, he spit gum at me. And I still said yes…
Seeing Blue October live in KC
Having our last year in Warrensburg together
Moving me to and from South Carolina, and Tom being an awesome partner who drove the truck both times so I could get into my car coma
Building elaborate sand castles every time we are at a beach
Fudge, Moccasins, and Ninja weapons. Enough said.
Building a laser obstacle course in our apartment with two lasers and lots of mirrors, then singing the theme song to mission impossible as we tried to roll through it.
Watching Tom with Grace.
Watching Tom with Ava (his sister’s daughter)
Nights on Pine Street
Friday Night Date night means Hy-Vee Chinese and a movie rental.
Taking care of me when I have food poisoning, which unfortunately has happened more times than I would care to remember
Making the ribbon streamers for our wedding and making up ribbon dances in our apartment to “test them out”
Tom being the first person to tell me Boy Meets World is going to have a sequel. This is a big deal folks, especially since he called me from Afghanistan to do so.
Hearing Tom’s end of the world plans, which changes on a daily basis.
Being there to watch each other graduate from big milestones (undergraduate, graduate, basic training)
Me beating him repeatedly in miniature golf…
Our first date and being serenaded by a band at the restaurant
Having different opinions in how Rummy should be played
Going to Zoo Brew the past few summers
BASEBALL
Tom reciting how I talk jibberish in my sleep. (Basketball Time!)
Being cited by WoF employees on our second date at the KC zoo. We didn’t want to be tainted by the WoF rumor mill…
Making forts out of anything and everything
Helping me train for my first half marathon and singing “Push It” as we run.
The proposal story in Savannah, GA
Our perfect wedding

We have lots of memories still to make and many more birthdays to experience!

Tonight’s craft has been a long time in the making. I have been collecting plastic bottle caps for the past 6 months for this. For someone who doesn’t buy a lot of groceries and has reusable bottles, this took me longer than others. Half of these honestly came from when we cleaned out my grandparents’ fridge after the funeral. So I am sure if someone else was doing the collecting it might go a little quicker.

So you just need need enough caps to cover the canvas of your choice. Then you just glue them all to the canvas in the design you want. It took me awhile to organize them so it wasn’t all one color in a certain area.

But this is the final product!