Today is our 10 year wedding anniversary. Woohoo! Josh is my teenage dream come true! I had the biggest crush on him when I was 17 years old. I hope you enjoy my attempt to document how we started dating.
The Prequel
It can be hard sometimes to determine where the beginning of a story should start. I first noticed my future husband the summer before my senior year of high school. I was 17 years old and lifeguarding at Kiwanis Wave Pool and immediately developed a school girl crush on him.
This guy, who I would quickly learn was named Josh, was walking across the pool deck wearing a Tennessee Titans hat and a shirt that indicated he was a pool manager at another city pool. I honestly didn’t think it would EVER be a possibility that I would date Josh because I knew he had to be in college, if not graduated, but I still joked with my friends at work over the summer that I was going to marry him one day and have his babies.I was able to get scheduled twice that summer at the outdoor pool while Josh was managing. I don’t think he spoke to me directly that day.
The summer ended, high school resumed, then it was summer again. I lifeguarded and taught swim lessons over the summer before attending Arizona State University and continued working in this capacity all throughout college.
Sometime between my freshman and sophomore year at ASU I got booted off my parents family membership at Lifetime Fitness. I decided that this would be the perfect time to join the YMCA. And why the YMCA you ask? Well it was a fairly easy choice on what gym to join. The price was right, it was close to home, and I almost Josh also worked there. On one occasion my mom was using a guest pass and I can remember pointing out Josh to her as he walked down the hallway. I told her how he also worked for the City of Tempe, was from Tennessee, wanted to be a firefighter, and probably a few more random facts about a person I had never talked with.
During my junior year in college I overheard at work that Josh had been hired as a firefighter and was moving to Tennessee. So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that my position that upcoming summer would be working alongside Josh as his assistant manager at an outdoor pool. Josh had moved to Arizona from Tennessee specifically with the goal to get hired as a firefighter in this state. At this point he had been testing for a little over 6 years when he decided to go back to Tennessee to see if he could get hired.
If you are unfamiliar with the hiring process for the Fire Department it is brutal. There are usually over a thousand applicants for just a handful of positions. It is uncommon, but does happen, where positions can be offered and then revoked for various reasons. In Josh’s case he had already been fitted for his uniform when he discovered he would no longer be hired.
In life we sometimes have the opportunity to look back on challenging seasons and see how God was at work. For some of us, it is easy to see how something better was waiting in the months or years ahead, and for others of us, we may never get the answer on this side of eternity. Fast forward our story two years and Josh and I would be on our honeymoon when he would learn he had been hired to a local Fire Department.
The Story
In March of 2005 we had a staff training and because Josh and I knew we were going to be working together all summer we sat next to each other and had our first real conversation. I also found out he was 10 years older then me. We left the training walking to our cars together and I can remember telling him that we were going to be best friends by the end of the summer. I am pretty sure he didn’t believe me. This is our first ever picture together. I was thrilled. In case you are curious, I am 21 years old in this picture and Josh had just turned 32.
I really didn’t see Josh very much the majority of the summer. I saw him when he would come in to work, but then I would leave, and I also saw him for two hours each week at inservice training. You can learn a lot about a person in a work environment. I got to see how Josh treated others, his leadership skills, work ethic, his lighthearted attitude towards life, and the way he valued my ideas and opinions. It wasn’t until the end of the summer, on the night of our staff awards banquet, that we actually spent time together not getting paid. I am pretty sure he fell for me that night or if could have been a slow build up of spending short snippets of time together over the summer.
As the summer season wrapped up, we slowly began spending more time together away from work. We would meet up for a movie or to grab a bite to eat and easily spend hours talking on the phone. Over the course of the next two months Josh would try to hold my hand at the movie theater and I would pull it away. It might sound silly but once I knew there was a 10 year age difference between us I wanted to make clear, I was a girl worth pursuing and also respecting. Not that I think holding hands is in anyway disrespectful but I just needed to know, that he knew, I was worth the wait.
I knew that things might be moving from friends to potentially something more when Josh offered to go trail running with me at South Mountain. I was fairly confident that he must like me more than a friend because Josh was not a runner. We did my 5 mile loop and he jokes that his knees haven’t been the same since. Shortly after this my hand became quite comfortable tucked securely in Josh’s hand.
The majority of the time we spent together was at my parents house because I still lived at home. We would typically eat dinner with my family, which I am beyond grateful for, because Josh really got to know my parents and brother and they really got to know him. After every meal he ate with us he always volunteered to do the dishes and my mom grinned and graciously allowed him to clean her kitchen.
One night after dinner we went for a walk in the neighborhood. I need to preface this by saying that up until this point we had not let anyone at work know we were dating. We were holding hands and suddenly heard our names questioningly being called from behind. As we turned we could see Kyle Perkins, a lifeguard who worked at our pool over the summer, and Kyle if you happen to be reading please know that we still laugh about this, with what could only be described as a jaw dropping expression on his face as he rode by on his bicycle. And after that it quickly became known that Josh and I were dating.
How We Became Us
I am not really sure when our friendship turned into something more because it was this slow crescendo that built up over time. We began looking for a church to attend together and found our church home that we still attend to this day. Josh was baptized there when we were dating, we were married there, and all of our children have been dedicated there.
We quickly fell into an easy routine of spending time together and with my family, going to church, Josh writing me love letters, and talking on the phone before falling asleep at night. Josh told me that he wanted to marry me shortly after we started dating.
I didn’t have any clue that he was saving for a ring, or even how much a ring cost, or how nice of ring he wanted to give me. Finally after what felt like forever, when in reality it had been a year, he asked me to marry him. You can read more about his proposal HERE and see my ring HERE.
This post could continue to go on and on forever but because I know it is getting long I am going to wrap it up. The past 10 years have been mixed with joy and heartbreak, sickness and health, 3 babies, 2 vasectomies, and much more in between. I would be lying if I said I had this whole marriage thing figured out. I don’t. But what I do know is that marriage is a commitment and one that is not always easy. Josh has been my faithful friend for the last 12 years and the passage below sums up my feelings towards him and our relationship.
In the year 1846 Rev. Richard Baxter wrote…
It is a mercy to have a faithful friend, that loveth you entirely, and is as true to you as yourself, to whom you may open your mind and communicate your affairs, and who would be ready to strengthen you, and divide the cares of your affairs and family with you, and help you to bear your burdens, and comfort you in your sorrows, and be the daily companion of your lives, and partaker of your joys and sorrows. And it is a mercy to have so near a friend to be a helper to your soul; to join with you in prayer and other holy exercises; to watch over you and tell you of your sins and dangers, and to stir up in you the grace of God, and remember to you of the life to come, and cheerfully accompany you in the ways of holiness.
I am grateful for our marriage, for the joy and heartaches that have continually brought us back to Jesus, for God’s grace, and for the blessings of our children. This is our story and I hope you have enjoyed this ever so small snippet of our beginning.
PS…Special shout out to our boss Pat for placing us at the same pool together that summer :). It was great running into you at Costco a few weeks ago.
