Hey friends! I hope you had a fun weekend! This week is a special week around here because Jamie and I are celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary this Thursday, January 15th (what?!). In the big scheme of marriage four years isn’t a huge milestone, but to us it still feels like an accomplishment worthy of a little celebration. 🙂 The last few days have constantly been filled with thoughts of “I can’t believe that four years ago today we were doing this and that to get ready for the wedding”, so I’ve decided to dedicate this whole week (whoop whoop!) to our relationship in the form of a little mini-series.
I started blogging about four months into our dating relationship, so I don’t have anything written down about how we met. *deep breath* Buckle up, folks! I’m about to yack for a while.
Jamie and I first heard each other’s names during our sophomore years of college (October 2007) while I was at the University of Alabama and he was at West Point. My sister Jennifer (a UA freshman) was dating Josh (a sophomore at West Point), and Josh and Jamie were friends; they first met at WP after recognizing each other from former high school track/cross country meets. Jennifer told me that she’d love to set me up with one of Josh’s good friends named Jamie, but I was definitely not interested in “some Army guy”. Jamie had plans to visit UA that fall with Josh and meet me, but I had zero interest (stubborn!).
Fast forward to Christmas break (2007). I was running around NYC with three close friends, and my mom called me in the middle of dinner in Times Square to gush about “some guy” that Josh had just brought over to the house (it was Jamie). She was squealing about how much I would like him and how she was so sad I wasn’t home to meet him, but I quickly informed her that I’d heard about Jamie but simply was not interested in dating somebody long distance that was in the Army. No ma’am.
A few days later I was relaxing at my parent’s house with Jennifer and Josh before we all ended Christmas break and went back to school. Josh and Jenn were gushing about all of their fun plans for West Point’s sophomore class ball (Yearling Winter Weekend) in a few weeks, and I jokingly mentioned that I was super jealous and wanted to go too! With that, Josh immediately picked up the phone and dialed Jamie’s number. If you know Josh, you know that he’s a totally jokester! I was so mortified and shocked that I slapped the phone from his hand and quickly hung up his phone. Of course Jamie called Josh’s phone back, and Josh told him that he had a date for him to the ball if he wanted one.
Jamie quickly said yes and that he’d take care of everything. I was mortified and in shock, but I just figured that it’d be a fun trip to NYC with my sister. I had three weeks to find a dress and get ready for my first military ball!
A few days later Jamie called me for the first time to “get to know me”. I remember our first phone conversation so well. Over the next three weeks we talked on the phone almost every day for up to an hour at a time. Our conversations were so easy and I was surprised at how much I liked talking to him. I even met his parents and brother when they stopped by the sorority house to meet this “random girl” he was taking to NYC (I found out later that they paid for my flight, but they didn’t know we’d never met before! Jamie left that part out! Haha.) We joke now about how we met each other’s entire families before we met each other.
On Friday, January 31th, 2008 my sister and I boarded a flight to the Stewart/Newburgh airport outside of West Point.
As our flight taxied into the gate I was physically shaking with nerves. I texted my girlfriends that I didn’t even want to get off of the plane! Of course I did, and the next few moments weirdly stand still in my memory. I remember descending down the escalator to the waiting area and seeing Jamie standing with his hands in his pockets by the baggage claim. He flashed a huge smile as soon as he saw me, and I immediately thought that he was the cutest guy I’d ever seen. I’m so glad that moment is so burned into my memory. He gave me a huge hug, and we talked and laughed like we were old friends the rest of the night.
He pursued me constantly the rest of the weekend. A few of Jamie’s friends and their dates all rented a snowy lodge in the mountains, and the whole group had so much fun. I’ll never forget waking up Saturday morning and seeing him reading his bible in the living room. He knew I wanted a man who was strong in his relationship with Christ, and he tried to show this to me from day one. He paid for all my meals, left yummy chocolate on my bed, got me a corsage for the ball – I could go on and on. I was on cloud nine. I hadn’t had a guy treat me that way in years! We ended that Saturday by dancing the night away.
Sunday came way too fast.
When we said our goodbyes at the airport, we agreed to see each other two weeks later in Birmingham when he flew home to his parent’s house for President’s Day weekend.
Later that night I met a ton of friends at a house party to watch the Super Bowl. My best friend Ashley wanted all the details from the weekend, but I wanted to talk with her privately. We left the party and went to Starbucks for the rest of the night where I gushed about Jamie. I felt so silly talking nonstop about a guy I’d only spent a few days with, but I had the most unexplainable (to this day!) gut feeling that he was it. She giggled with me because she knew I really liked him. It was all honestly such a fairytale.
Fast forward two weeks, and Jamie and I spent every second of his three-day weekend together. By the end of the weekend we knew we wanted to give the long distance a shot, so we made our relationship official.
We had no idea that less than three years later we’d each have a wedding band on our left hand and share a last name!
In hindsight, maybe we had a hunch.
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo