Fifteen years.

It was October, 2001. I'd been seeing this guy for a few months, and I was crazy about him. On this particular night we'd just gotten back to his house from dinner; I was getting ready to drive back to the apartment I shared with a friend in a little town about 45 minutes to an hour away (depending on which route you took). He said something about "when we get married, we won't have to spend all our time driving" and I just nodded and went with it.

"Wait a minute," he said, "did I just say when we get married?"
"Yup."
"And that... doesn't freak you out?"
"Nope."
"Okay. Whew. So, uh, will you marry me?"
"Yes, of course!"

A ring and a proper proposal followed shortly.

Approximately six months later - April 27, 2002 - we were married. It rained cats and dogs that day. The hairdresser accidentally tore a little hole in my veil while putting in the approximately 17,000 bobby pins required to hold my French twist up (I think I'm still pulling some out). My brothers, who were ushers, protested the tuxedos. My grandmother, already upset that I wasn't marrying a Catholic guy and choosing to get married in a non-Catholic church, almost fainted when she found out the minister marrying us was female. My DJ cancelled three days before the wedding and we spent three hours before the rehearsal dinner furiously burning music to CD's. Ben's dad complained because the Cardinals were playing that day and our wedding was smack-dab in the middle of a game. Ben's uncle stuck his finger in Ben's potato salad at the reception. We forgot candle holders for the candle ceremony part, and had to send Ben's friend Tim (who lived in Chicago and had never been to Pekin ever) to Kmart in the pouring rain to get some. We ended our first night as a married couple in a hotel suite, eating pizza and watching True Stories of the Highway Patrol.

But you know what? That day was perfect. Because I got to promise to spend forever with the love of my life, in front of all our friends and family.

Fifteen years, two huge moves, one child and one church-change later, we are better than ever.

I love him a little more every day.

We celebrated this milestone the same way we celebrated our 10th anniversary: Kid-free getaway to St. Louis to watch the Cardinals play. They won the Friday night game. The Saturday game got rained out so we went to the mall, to the movies (Lego Batman; it was pretty awesome), and to dinner at Olive Garden. Got back into town around lunchtime today and picked up Allyson and the dog from Ben's parents' place.

While we were gone Allyson participated in the last quizzing meet of the year for church. She got a bronze medal, and a trophy for memorizing 20 Bible verses. I'm lucky I know four offhand. She was disappointed that she didn't qualify for the World quizzing meet in June, but she worked really hard and medaled in each quiz she entered, so she has a lot to be proud of.

But, despite the weather throwing a wrench into our Saturday plans, I still had a great weekend. Only partially because Bath and Body Works had a buy 3 get 3 free sale (treated myself and got my mom's Mother's Day gift taken care of). Only partially because we found Firefly on Blu-Ray at a movie/music/game resale shop at the mall (and cheaper than Amazon, too). Entirely because I got to just take a couple of days to relax with my absolute favorite person on the planet.

Can't wait to do it all again for our 20th.