Nine years ago today

So, all day I've been trying to figure out why November 25th seemed like it should be familiar to me. I've literally been thinking about it all day. At first I thought about how Jayla is 3.25 years old as of yesterday. And although I now have a secondary question (when did I start forgetting that Jayla is a month older on the 24th of each month?), I knew that wasn't the significance of today. Then I thought about a girl that lived on my hall at the residential high school that I graduated from. Today was her birthday but, that also was not what was supposed to be significant about today.

Then tonight, I was sitting in my next to last Statistics class for the semester (Thank you, God! I am SO OVER this semester!). As I wrote the date at the top of my notes, it hit me: November 25, 1999 - the day my husband and I got engaged! A full nine years has passed since then, which absolutely blows my mind. November 25 was Thanksgiving Day that year and he had come to Mississippi to spend the holiday with my family. I thought that was a little strange since we had only been dating for 7 months but, whatever...I was excited about spending a holiday with a boy that I actually like enough to bring around my family!! While it wasn't a particularly romantic proposal, it was a memorable one as we were surrounded by my grandparents, parents, and sister at the time.

I was just 20 years old when we got engaged. Some people thought I was too young to be engaged because I hadn't finished school yet, hadn't been on my own yet, etc. But, others were entirely estatic for me. I think the folks in the latter group are those who knew that I was engaged to a pretty good guy and were just relieved that I was fortunate enough to be marrying someone that I totally didn't deserve. Regardless as to what camp people were in back then, it seems that most people are now in agreement that we're making this thing work.

Tonight when I got home from school, my house was full - my parents and my in-laws drove into town tonight to spend Thanksgiving with us. This is the second time in 3 months that they've all been here together to celebrate something. It's amazing to think that our extended family unit started with a very simple question asked nine years ago today...