All Because Two Faculty Brats Fell In Love

Today is the 14th anniversary of our quazi-arranged marriage. Almost 16 years ago, in college, which is an amazing adventure--if you leave home--two faculty brats met in an Honors Humanities class. My next-door neighbor slash academic advisor convinced me taking this class was a good idea(that's how it works when you're a faculty brat--your advisors and professors are your neighbors). And Ben enrolled in the same class because his mom directed the Honors Program. The storybook beginning was that we first held hands on the way home from a Friday evening class trip to the Honolulu Academy of the Arts. When he asked me out on our first real date, he laughed when I told him my address. His family lived in our house years before our family did. We'd been dating for all of two weeks when we started hearing variations on this theme: "You? With you? Cute! It's not often that faculty brats marry each other, ya know. Your parents must be proud." I loved talking to him, loved his smile, and was blown away by his genius. (I remember quizzing him before tests and he'd repeat full paragraphs word-for-word from the textbook.) He owned a pick-up and willingly offered to help people in his ward.

We dated for a year and were engaged for eight months. We were married in the Hawaii LDS Temple. Life these days is as near bliss as it can be when you're raising four young children. Ben patiently endures my inability to consistently rid the kitchen sink of dirty dishes. I look past his construction zone perfectionism. We honestly like each other. We work, play, and pray together.

This summer Ben has little free time with 13 hours on plus 8 hours (his goal) of sleep. He has three hours a day of discretionary time, much of which is spent eating, getting ready, and commuting to work. With that schedule in mind, I was truly surprised to wake up to breakfast in bed of grilled steak and eggs. What a sweetheart! And he showed up this morning with chocolates. I retaliated with Oreos when he woke up today. We're celebrating our anniversary this weekend--a babysitter is lined up and Ben got the whole night off (for a while is boss was only going to let him take a few hours off!) and we're going to dinner and to see comedian Brian Regan perform live. (Google him or look him up on youtube if you haven't heard of him.)