Today was my "mommy day". It's a day every so often that Landon lets me be completely and totally off. He takes care of the kids and runs the household and I get to just do whatever it is I want to do. Although that usually consists of sleeping this day and age, today I thought I would lay in bed and read a little from the book I have been reading for the past couple of months. As I was laying in bed reading I could still hear all of what was going on at my house and I couldn't really concentrate on what I was reading for all of the crying and whining that goes on here in just a typical day. I laid my ereader down and just listened for a second. Usually when I'm the one being the caregiver and I'm trying to pacify everyone and get stuff done the sound of crying and whining and cartoons and toddler music in the background is enough on most days to make me feel as if my ears might start bleeding. However, today was different, today was sort of an eye opener so to speak. While listening to all the commotion going on in the living room I couldn't help but to smile because of what an absolute beautiful sound it was today. I started thinking back to when the sounds of our home consisted of our dogs and country music on the television, because there were no kids that lived there. I was thinking about how our lives had changed so much in the past 7 years. Since this blog started as we were expecting Parker, a lot of people don't even know the actual story of before Parker. The story of how Landon and I became an "us". So I decided to back track into our journey a little and explain how we started out, how we met etc. This story starts back in 2002, I was working at a hospital in Florence, Alabama as what they called a multi-skilled technician which was a catch all phrase for "whatever the nurses told you to do" and I worked 12 hour night shifts. My best friend also worked there on another floor during the same shift. I had a boyfriend and a pretty simple life that consisted of not many plans for the future and a whole lot of working and bills. I got a phone call from my friend saying that this "really cute" man in some type of uniform just passed by the nursing station from visiting his grandmother in the hospital and she was going to go talk to his grandmother and find out if he was single or not. This was of course for her not me because like I said earlier, I had a boyfriend. I said "ok, well let me know what you find out" I hung up the phone, laughed to myself and went about my business. To make a long story short they started dating and life kept on happening. That guy was a real nice guy named Landon and the four of us would double date some. A couple of months went by and my friend and Landon for whatever reasons they had decided it wasn't working out and called it quits. Well I just assumed we would never see or hear from him again and never thought another thing of it. My friend and Landon remained on speaking terms and would talk from time to time. Just a simple how have you been kind of thing. Well fast forward to February of 2005. On February 8, 2005 my relationship with my then boyfriend started to unravel. Actually it had been unraveling for quite some time and I was just too afraid to admit it for fear that I couldn't live without this person(who shall remain nameless). The fact was that the relationship was far from perfect and a real terrible time in my life. I deeply loved him and was prepared to possibly spend the rest of my life with him. I really felt as though I had given every opportunity for it to work out and it had come time to stop being the only person willing to "work" at it. So we parted ways. I was devastated and spent the next 2 weeks depressed, unshowered, and laying in the bed basking in my own self pity. One night or actually morning my cell phone rang and it was my best friend claiming she had the best idea. She had cooked up in her mind that I should go on a date with her ex boyfriend Landon. Completely disgusted with the idea of dating anyone ever again I said thanks but no thanks and do not try to fix me up with anyone. We hung up the phone and little did I know, she then preceded to send Landon and email with my info and told him the story of my breakup and her idea of how we should go on a date. The next day my best friend and I had plans to meet up with another friend of ours in Birmingham for a girls night out. Still in my pity party I looked disgusting and felt even worse, but we were off to Birmingham. Well on the way my friend decided to make an impromptu stop by you guessed it! Landon's house. Even if I wanted to pursue a relationship(which I didn't) I knew I had nothing to worry about the way I looked that day he was never gonna ask me out! Well we went in and visited and he was the same old extremely nice Landon he had been when she dated him but I had no intention of dating him. Before we left that day he asked if I wanted to go to dinner sometime. Completely shocked because I'm telling ya, I looked like poo, I nicely said probably not and we left. That night in Birmingham as we were getting ready to go to sleep my phone rang and it was Landon. He had called just to talk. We talked and after that call had decided that we would go to dinner. However, I made it perfectly clear that I was heart broken and going through a lot in my life and we could be just friends but nothing more. One dinner turned into several and I found Landon to be the easiest person to talk to ever. We would just sit and talk for hours on end. He slowly started to turn into one of the best friends I had. As time went on I started noticing that I missed him when he wasn't around. Before I knew it, he had completely won me over and I was in love with him. We dated for 5 months and at that time decided we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and we got engaged in July. The following May we got married in an evening ceremony at Colby Hall on the campus of The University of North Alabama. It was the most wonderful day. I couldn't believe I had found my best friend and soul mate thanks to my friend that I told to butt out that refused to listen. HA! So needless to say I am most thankful for her meddling and emails against my better judgement. So there it is......The Story of "US" That is how we met and how we became one. There is an incredible amount more to our story that I am going to explain in the near future. Some of it blissfully happy and some of it terribly heartbreaking. So it will be over several blog posts. Until next time, Goodnight Friends
