The Beginning

1. How it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.

This is Tootsie and me right before my first date with Philip

 Pretty sure this was one of the first pictures we took right after I introduced Philip to rainbow floats

 It all started back in 2005. It had been a few months since my dad passed away and I was in a pretty rotten place in my life. Philip and I had some mutual friends and started talking on Myspace. We talked for a month or two and decided we wanted to hang out. 

Our first date. He showed up at my house wearing the exact same sunglasses that I had. It had to be a sign right? We went to dinner at Chilis and he let me order one of the most expensive things on the menu and then made fun of me the whole time because I was too shy to eat it in front of him (it was a great dinner later though). He was totally on his phone nonstop texting and taking calls the whole time during dinner. How he ever got a second date, I'll never know haha. When we had our receipt Philip wrote me a note on the back of it that says Philip <3s Adrienne (he called me Adrienne for the longest time). I kept that note and still have it in my checkbook. Crazy to think that was almost 6 years ago. After dinner we decided to for some reason go pickup my cute puppy chihuahua who was only like 5 months old on the time and go for a drive. Philip cracked me up like no other. It had been such a long time since I laughed like that. I finally felt like I had hope, I finally felt happy again. We drove all around Roy and he decided it would be funny to hang Tootsie completely out the window driving around 40 mph. Again how he got a second date haha. We were listening to " I love it when they call me big papa, throw your hands in the air" and having a great time. I'm pretty shy so for me to be singing full blast in the car with this crazy kid on our first date, definitely was something else. He was in a rush to head back to Salt Lake, he had other plans with his friends but for some reason we just went back to my house and sat in the drive way for a long time just talking. I know sitting in the driveway, not inside, I HAD NEVER brought a guy home to meet my family before Philip. I never wanted to. (I think it took about 5 dates for him to finally bring him around to meet my family.) I just remember the conversation never stopped and he made me laugh so hard. He had the prettiest blue eyes and I knew I was already in love with this kid. When he finally decided to leave he gave me a handshake goodbye. It was the funniest thing EVER! Who gives handshakes goodbye? Oh well. I noticed that he had one of those rubber bracelets on at the time and somehow or another I read it as his "meat" bracelet and I stole it. It really said team. I still have that bracelet to this day and every time I look at it I can't help but laugh and remember our first date. 

Our first kiss is an even better story. Philip and I had spent the day together shopping, getting ice cream, and going to a movie. It was a blast. At the movie he had the cutest excuse ever to try and hold my hand *props to him for creativity* I had my nails done at the time and he asked me during the movie to tickle his hand. I did for a long time and finally stopped and he's like what, do it some more and he eventually got the courage after that to hold my hand. His quirky little ways about him just crack me up. So after our perfect date and night of hanging out he took me back to my car. He had a CD made of a bunch of songs at the time and we sat there for hours while he tried to teach me how to dance to everything from country swing, to rap, and to slow dance. At the end of a slow dance song, it was late and all the stars were out, I remember looking up at him just starring at his eyes and he gave me a kiss on the forehead, and then we kissed, It was just perfect. It was the perfect ending to the night. 

Philip and I dated almost 5 years to the day we were married. Even though I complained at times about it being that long of a relationship I know that those 5 years dating as a couple make us stronger as a married couple. We went through so many different things in those 5 years that made me feel more prepared for marriage and more thankful for everything we have now. If we were married sooner we wouldn't be as well off as we are now. There is no way we'd be able to buy a house if we were married any sooner. Everything happens for a reason and I know exactly why things happened the way they did for us!