Celebrating 2 Years of Fun

This past Tuesday marked two years of official dating for Troy and myself. Now, if you ask Troy, he’ll say our anniversary was in January because that’s when we met and went on our first date. But I thought he was a bit odd and at one point really didn’t like him very much. Those of you who know Troy will understand. He’s definitely an interesting individual and even when you don’t like him much, he has this pull that makes you not want to quite get rid of him. So, against what I thought was my better judgment, I kept hanging out with him and eventually started to see that the obnoxious personality that he puts forth is just a front to cover the very sweet, caring and compassionate person he doesn’t want anyone to know exists.

But while I worked to figure that out, I told him I didn’t like him (sometimes I told him he was a jerk), didn’t want to be his girlfriend and was going to continue to date other people. He, on the other hand, was telling everyone that we were ‘together’. It was definitely a confusing time for everyone who knew us.

After four and a half months of Troy being Troy and me telling all my friends that I thought he was a butthead and that while I didn’t mind being friends with him, I did NOT want to date him, Troy left for a three-week vacation and work meeting in Hawaii. He’d invited me along with him, but I didn’t feel comfortable going since I didn’t like him in that way. I didn’t want to use him. So, he left by himself and I stayed behind.

While he was gone, he texted me a few times during the day and sent me a picture or two a day before calling me for a few minutes every evening. At first I was surprised that he was calling me every day, but after a few days I began looking forward to it. To my surprise, I realized that I missed him.

Then, about a week and a half after he left, I went on a date with one of my other guy friends (they both knew I was not exclusively dating anyone). During that date, I had a major revelation. I realized about halfway through the date that I was checking my phone every few minutes for a text or picture from Troy and I was thinking about all the weird and obnoxious comments Troy would be making either about the guy I was with or the stuff we were doing (visiting an aquarium). It was then that I began to understand that I really did care about Troy and that I would have much rather been there at the aquarium with him. After that date, I pretty much quit talking to that guy and turned down his request for another date. I felt bad about it since he was a really nice guy, but I didn’t think it was fair to him to be spending time with him and have my mind occupied with what Troy.

So, the day Troy came back from his trip I picked him up from the airport and told him that, fine, I would be his girlfriend. His response? ‘Oh.’ lol.

Two weeks later, we had our first argument and Troy said, in all seriousness, that we fought too much and that he thought we should break up. Really? After trying to convince me to date him for four and a half months while I told him he was an obnoxious butthead and was dating other people, all it took was two weeks and an argument for him to turn tail and run. What a dork. I told him, no, that he had spent so much time wearing me down and getting me to like him that I wasn’t about to let him off that easy once he’d gotten me to change my mind about him. He was stuck. 😀

Over the past two years we’ve had some great moments, some interesting moments, some fantastic moments and some crazy moments. We’ve learned a lot about each other and (i like to think) have enjoyed being together. This guy drives me crazy, but he is unapologetically himself and very much keeps me on my toes. He makes me laugh every day, makes me wonder what on earth I’ve gotten myself into every day and makes me feel cared about every day. He’s a good man and I’m so happy he kept wearing me down until I decided to give him a real chance. Since then, I’ve truly gotten to see how much he cares about people, how hard he tries to do the right thing, how willing he is to help and take care of his family and how much effort he puts into keeping others from seeing that side of him. He may be an obnoxious butthead a lot of the time, but he’s an obnoxious butthead who has a very gentle and loving heart.

And he’s going to yell at me for writing that. haha

Anyways, in honor of our anniversary, I went through photos of us from the day we met until now and decided to share some of them and the stories that go with them.

This picture is from our first date on January 29, 2012. This is the date Troy considers our anniversary. We actually met on the 28th when he sent me a message on Facebook saying he’d been looking through the members of a singles group we were both part of on Facebook and noticed I was from St George. He said, “I get like an excited puppy dog when I run into people from home.” We ended up chatting for three hours and he said he’d think about going to the activity that night after he went to a movie with his coworkers. When he showed up at the activity (a mocktail party), he immediately pulled a chair to about an inch away from me and said, “So, St. George.” It. was. hilarious. He wasn’t kidding about being an excited puppy dog when meeting people from St. George.

After playing games and drinking non-alcoholic cocktails for a while, the party started to break up and Troy asked me if I wanted to see his car. I’m not a car person, but decided I wanted to keep talking to him and after him showing off his car and extolling the virtues of how expensive it was, he asked if I wanted a ride. (those who were with us in Malaysia will note the irony of this since he got pretty upset when I got in a car with a stranger in Malaysia…….) He seemed nice, so I said yes. I should have said no. I thought he was going to kill us. He drives that thing like a madman! He took us into a parking lot and really enjoyed making me think he was going to drive straight into light poles before doing lots of donuts and fishtailing. After a bit, he let me drive and taught me how to do the same thing, though my attempts were far more timid.

The next day, he messaged me and asked for my phone number and if I wanted to join him at a park near my apartment to take pictures. After I got out of church I drove over and met up with him. We wandered around Martin Nature Park for a few hours and had a great time. He likes to tell me that he got to first base on our first date, but that is not true. It had been really warm when I left my house to join him at the park, but after an hour or so it got cold. Since I didn’t have a jacket he gave me his. Eventually his hands got cold, so I put one of his hands in the pocket of the jacket along with my hand. I keep telling him that I was just trying to warm his hand up, but he insists we were holding hands. If he ever says this, please explain to him the difference between two hands being in the vicinity of each other versus two hands being held.

When we were getting ready to go to Myanmar, I told Troy I really wanted to ride the Circle Train in Yangon. He wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of sitting on a train for three hours when we were only going to be in the country for a few days and said that if we had time, we would do it, but that if there were several things we could do in the time we would be riding the train, that he would rather do that. So, we agreed to keep it in mind if we ran out of things to do. I was kinda bummed because I didn’t think we were going to do it, but Troy had been planning to do it all along. On our last day there we got on the train and had a fabulous time (a blog will be written about it eventually haha). After the ride we had to take our requisite “just finished something fun” photo. The girl in blue behind us was such a character. She waved and got our attention and wanted to talk with us. She spoke decent English and kept asking us to take photos of us kissing or doing other goofy things. Troy declined. I think he was embarrassed. lol.

When we were in Australia, I wanted to get a picture of us overlooking the Blue Mountains. Troy gets tired of all the pictures I take of us, but he still goes along with it. I have long since given up trying to get a ‘normal’ picture and just go with his goofiness. This time, I was sooooo happy because he actually smiled…………………..but then I saw what he’d done in lieu of the goofy expression. He’d flipped off the camera. The jerk. When I chastised him for doing that and ruining a lovely picture, this is what he did. He was laughing so hard and was so pleased with himself for his trickery that I decided I might as well get a picture. *sigh*

Shortly after Troy bought his new house, it snowed and snowed and snowed. We were stuck there for a couple days because the roads were too bad to drive on. To make the time go by, we spent a lot of time playing in the snow. We built a snowman peeking in the back window, Troy built a snow cave for Sadie to play in (she was not as thrilled as he thought she’d be), we made snow mazes and had a pretty epic snowball fight. It was fun racing around the yard, trying not to slip in the snow while dodging snowballs. Troy couldn’t figure out why mine flew further than his and stayed solid longer. Because it took him a while to figure out how to make his snowballs keep their form, I was able to pelt him many more times than he got me. So, I won. Yay!

Bali was so much fun! The rice fields were the one thing I REALLY wanted to see there and we were under the impression that they were only to be found in one section of the island, the section that was on the opposite end from where we were. Since we thought it was so far away, we figured it would have to be a bottom-of-the-list thing since we wanted to see as much as possible while we were there for those three days. To our surprise and my intense delight, there are rice fields EVERYWHERE in Bali! Yay! I was so excited and so happy when we drove past this rice field on the way to something else we wanted to see. It was only 15 minutes away from our hotel! Seriously, I cried because I was so happy. Troy thought I was being silly, but I think he was also relieved because he knew how much I wanted to visit a rice field. It was so beautiful and so fascinating that we ended up spending several hours climbing the terraces and wandering around. We both enjoyed it so much that Troy was even willing to pose for a cute photo. Well, partially. lol.

It was hard to pick only 5 pictures from the many things we’ve done the past two years. There have just been too many exciting things and too many fun stories. I get a little intimidated when I think about all the things I want to share with everyone. We’ve had so much fun. Troy is such a fascinating person and he makes life an adventure. I love this guy. These past two (and a half) years have been a breathtaking journey that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Here’s to this just being the beginning of a story that lasts for forever.