Love Stories

I am married to the biggest sports fan ever! Chris will play and watch anything (with the exception of soccer. According to him, soccer is not a "sport" but merely a game. For those of you that may object to this...don't shoot the messenger.) Something is always on the TV at our house...basketball, football, baseball, golf, UFC, poker (is that even considered a sport?).

He is such a nut that before we got married, he had me memorize all 32 football teams, with the San Francisco 49er's being at the top of the list, of course. After our wedding, he slowly began to clue me in to the fact that he had boxes full of memorabilia stored under his parents' home. Now when I say "boxes", I mean many many many boxes and containers...anything that could hold items and came with a lid was stuffed full of autographed baseballs, footballs, jerseys, jackets, stat cards, newspaper clippings, pictures, sweaty towels from basketball players, bobble head collections, every issue of Sports Illustrated Kids from it's inception on and even a hunk of grass from a favorite football field. His collection is astounding. If his parents ever insist that we remove all these boxes from their home, we would either have to buy a bigger house or rent a storage locker.

I am sharing all this silliness with you because this sports craze has led up to a very important experience for my husband. For years, Chris has been planning to attend the ceremonies for Jerry Rice's Hall of Fame induction in Ohio, which just happened this weekend. I am so glad that he was able to attend the event that he has been dreaming about for as long as I've known him. However, that has left me alone with our three little ones for 5 days! I'm tired. And I really miss him... Thankfully, he'll be home tomorrow.

After I got the kids in bed tonight, I sat down on the couch to veg with the TV for a bit and I stumbled onto one of my favorite movies, When Harry met Sally. I hope you have all seen this movie...it's so much fun. Naturally I did what any lonely wife would do when watching a romantic movie by herself. I made some chocolate chip cookie dough (no, I didn't bake it) and I enjoyed this movie all by myself. One of the things I love about this movie is that it shows clips of married couples sharing their love stories. Here's mine...

Once upon a time, I was teaching a preschool Sunday school class at our church when in walks this very handsome stranger. He proceeded to walk behind the counter (which prevents the kiddos from escaping) which immediately clued me in to the fact that he was my "helper" for that particular Sunday. My first thought was "No, God, not here." Jumping around with puppets and using my little kid voice was not exactly how I wanted to impress this very attractive man. But I had no choice. I lead music and circle time with as much maturity as I could get away with...which wasn't much. Something must have worked though because we got to know one another after that Sunday.

Seven months later, he surprised me with a very adorable proposal. Once again I was teaching my Sunday school class, when one at a time, each of my students began to bring me one long stem red rose and some little memento from our dating relationship (one was a napkin from the restaurant he took me to on our first date, another one was a ticket stub to a basketball game we went to). Prince charming was the one to bring me rose number 12 and with fifteen 4 year old's looking on confused, he proposed to me right where we had first met. AWWWWW!

I love romantic stories and sweet beginnings! Please share yours with me too!!!