In honor of our 7th anniversary yesterday (wow, 7 years!!), I thought it would be neat to blog about some of the funniest things that have happened during the time that Travis and I have been married. I’m pretty sure that I’ve never written most of these down, and I’d hate to forget them when we’re older. Without further ado…
1. Leaving for the honeymoon: We hadn’t been married longer than a couple of hours when this first funny moment happened. It was time to leave our wedding reception, and of course we were excited. The groomsmen had decorated my car and filled it with balloons, and we were planning to drive it back to my parents’ house in Trussville, change clothes, and then head to Atlanta to spend the night before driving to Orlando the next day. Well, we had barely driven down the road at all when my car’s “check engine” light came on. Great! What do we do now? We weren’t really sure what to do, but we knew that we didn’t want to pull over on the side of the road still dressed in our wedding attire! So, we got on the interstate, but Travis took it REALLY slow. I don’t remember how slow we were going (probably 55 mph or slower!), but we will never forget watching Travis’s grandparents zoom by us in their minivan. I’m sure they were wondering why in the world we weren’t in a bigger hurry to get where we were going…haha!!!
2. Tipping Twenties: To finish the previous story, we eventually made it back to my parents’ house, but since we weren’t sure what was wrong with my car, we ended up taking my sister’s car to Atlanta and on to Orlando. (She drives an Infiniti SUV). So, we unpacked my car and repacked everything in her car, and finally we were on our way! We were supposed to stay in the Peachtree Plaza in downtown Atlanta, which was a much nicer hotel than either of us had ever stayed in before. Remember, we were only 21 at the time :) Anyway, we were not prepared when we pulled up in the parking garage and the attendant walked up, ready to valet park our car for us. We obviously were used to staying at hotels where you park yourself! Travis pulled out his wallet and much to our dismay, he only had $20 bills. Nothing smaller than that. He thought about it for a second…Okay, we’re driving an Infiniti and staying at a ritzy hotel. This guy probably thinks we’re loaded. So, what did Travis do? Tipped him TWENTY dollars for parking our car for us. Even worse…the next morning we were ready to leave, and of course the guy pulled our car around for us. He was probably so excited to see us coming…ha! Yes, we STILL only had $20s, and so there went another $20 bill less than 12 hours later. I think that would for sure be the definition of “throwing money down the drain”…haha. It was an expensive lesson learned, but one that we still laugh about to this day!
3. Merry Christmas to You: I honestly can’t remember if it was Christmas 2008 or 2009, but it was one of those years when we were still in school in Tuscaloosa. Our usual routine was to spend the first part of Christmas break with my family and then drive to Huntsville on Christmas Eve to spend the rest of the break with Travis’s family. So, it was Christmas Eve, and it was already dark outside. Travis and I were driving our own cars, and he was following behind me. We were taking the back roads to the interstate, and it was MONSOONING outside. I could barely see anything it was raining so hard. (Let it be known that I absolutely hate driving in weather like that. I get really uptight and nervous.) So we were driving along a dark road when all of a sudden, I came up on a construction barrel that was lying on its side in the middle of my lane. Not an orange cone, but one of those big fat orange and white barrels. I didn’t have much time to react, and I ended up driving right over it. I slowed way down because I could immediately tell that it was stuck under my car, and I was dragging it along with me. Right away, I called Travis crying about what had happened. I was afraid I’d messed up my car, and I had no idea what to do to get it unstuck. He told me to pull off on a side street, and so I did. There were a few houses along that road, and he instructed me to pull into a driveway, stop, and back up to see if that would help. Hooray!! I did just what he said, and as I backed up, I could see the crumpled orange and white barrel lying there in the driveway. I was so relieved! If it hadn’t been raining so hard, I probably would have gotten out and moved the barrel, but I didn’t want to get soaked. So, we’ll just say that Santa left an interesting present at that house that year. I’ve always wondered what those people thought when they woke up the next morning and found that “gift” in their driveway! :)
4. Gas Guzzler: Because of Travis’s co-op job, it took him 5 years to graduate from college instead of 4. I ended up graduating a semester ahead of him, and so during the spring of 2010, I worked at Huntsville Hospital and lived with Baugay (his grandmother) while he was finishing up his last semester in school in Tuscaloosa. So, we were always on the road driving back and forth to see each other. On this particular occasion, I think Travis was on his way back to Tuscaloosa from spending the weekend with me, and he stopped for gas at the Pilot in Cottondale. He got the gas pumping and decided that he would run inside to use the bathroom while his car was filling up. Bad idea!! He wasn’t inside the gas station that long, but it was long enough for his car to finish filling. Unfortunately, the pump didn’t shut off automatically when his gas tank filled, so when Travis walked out of the gas station, all he saw was gas shooting everywhere out of his car. He ran to his car to shut it off as fast as he could, noticing along the way all of the other customers that were standing there just watching the scene unfold. He said he has never driven away from a gas station so fast in his life! I’m sure he was embarrassed, but he was more worried that someone would toss a cigarette butt into the river of gas, and the whole place would explode!!
5. Where’s Your Auditorium?: We celebrated our 5 year anniversary with another trip to Orlando, so this was 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Brooklyn. We were there for about a week, and on Wednesday night we made plans to go to Bible study at a local congregation in town. We left our hotel in plenty of time to get there, but after getting stopped in a little bit of traffic, we arrived just before 7 PM when it was supposed to start. The road that the church was on was pretty dark, and we noticed as we pulled into the parking lot that there were only a couple of other cars there. We parked and walked inside, and we saw a few kids playing in the lobby. The building looked strangely empty otherwise though, and it took a minute to actually find an adult to ask for directions. We finally did, and Travis asked the man, “Where’s your auditorium?” The man looked utterly confused, and so Travis clarified, “We’re looking for the adult Bible class.” This apparently did not help the man at all, and after thinking about it for a few seconds, he told us to follow him down a long hallway. I could tell right away that we were not at the right place, and I nudged Travis as we were walking that we should turn and run. As we walked, we passed by several large paintings on the wall and many rooms that were marked with different mission names. The man led us into a large room filled with chairs and an old piano, but it was otherwise completely empty. We were the only ones in the room! Another man walked into the room a minute later, and then the two men told us they need to get something and they’d be right back, leaving us alone in the room. I told Travis that the church we were looking for must have moved, and now it was being used by a different group. I told him that there was no point in sticking around since we weren’t where we thought we were, but he didn’t want to be rude and just leave without saying anything. We waited for several minutes before the two men reappeared, wheeling an old TV into the room. Before they could show us whatever video they were planning, Travis spoke up and said, “We’re looking for the South Bumby Church of Christ. Are we at the right place?” The two men looked at each other and one said, “No, that church is right next door. This is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” Whoops! Apparently in our hurry not to be late, Travis pulled off the road one parking lot too early, and we ended up visiting our very first Mormon church! We laughed about it as we walked back out to the car, and it was even funnier when Travis later looked it up and learned that only Mormons are allowed to go into the “sanctuary”. I’m sure that guy wondered who we thought we were walking straight in and asking to go inside their auditorium…haha!
So, there you have it–some of the funniest moments from our 7 years of marriage! I’m sure there will be many, many more to come knowing us :) We had a very nice evening last night going out to eat for a kid-free dinner at the Fish Market downtown and then grabbing a popsicle at Steel City Pops for dessert. Brooklyn stayed with Paw and Rae Rae for the evening and apparently was very well behaved. We won’t mention the fact that she dove headfirst out of her crib not too long before we left on our date because she didn’t want to take a nap. Or the large carpet burn that she has on her forehead as a result (she seems to be fine otherwise). And we definitely won’t mention how she refused to sleep in a “big girl bed” (twin mattress on the floor in the den) last night after we were afraid to put her back in that crib, and so she ended up in our bed for the night…on our anniversary! Ha! I guess that’s real life with a certain toddler named Brooklyn!
