In honor of our 5 Year Anniversary....
It all started when I was at a frat party in early fall of 2001 when a guy said to me, “All education majors are MRS majors.” I have no idea who he was and I think he may have been trying to flirt with me, but it freaked me out. So the very next day I changed majors…to something more serious and career-sounding, but one that wasn’t so hard I’d have to spend all my time studying or have to take any more science or math than necessary…Communication. And I felt burned out on just doing sorority stuff, so I joined the Communication Council, too, and jumped right into a whole new non-greek world at UT.
Meanwhile, Jon, who had been avowedly "against commitment" for his first year of college and busy pursuing his ambition to be president of the world, had a premonition that he might need to find someone to marry while in college, b/c it would be hard to meet someone afterward with such a long and important list of goals to accomplish. He didn't pay much attention to this at the time (he definitely didn't start looking for someone), but Jon later told me that, in hindsight, he thinks this was God preparing his heart to meet me a few weeks later.
We met at a Communication Council meeting in October of 2001 in the Student Union Building across from the pasta place that made that whole area of the building smell like garlic. I remember that I was wearing a turquoise top and black Capri pants and I had spent a lot of time doing my hair and I felt cute that night. I was sitting near the back of the room and still didn’t know many people. During the meeting a guy walked in late and sat down next to me. I told him we should move down in case people came in late. He said, “No. We’re fine where we are.” And boy did that get my attention. Boys did not tell me “No,” especially when I felt cute. (Later I found out he didn’t want to move b/c he was trying to flirt with the girl in front of us b/c they had kind of started dating.) I thought he was obnoxious and pulled out my palm pilot and ignored him. He pulled out a much cooler palm pilot. I tried to focus on the meeting, but his presence was making me madder and madder…who does this guy think he is? And he asked questions and talked out and basically took center stage the entire meeting as there was a question/answer time with the Dean Wartella of the comm. school. After it was over, he stuck his hand out to me and said, “Jon Mureen. Nice to meet you.” And I responded politely. Then he kept talking to me and asking me questions…and it definitely improved my opinion of him that he was so “interested” in me (little did I know he was campaigning for student body president). I loved it. I told him all about what I wanted to do “when I grew up.” Some bs about being a social worker and saving the world. I didn’t think he was as bad as I had originally thought, but it didn’t occur to me whether or not he was cute, because I was already dating someone.
Then the next day I’m sitting in Chemistry (it was a large class w/ like 300 people) and low and behold that same guy walks in late again on the other side of the room and you could just tell he knew every one every where he went and I couldn’t believe I’d never seen him before the Comm. Council meeting…because now he seemed to be everywhere I went! So I’d see him at Comm. Council stuff (we had to sit in the Comm. Council office like 15 hours each semester, so I’d see him coming or going from the office) and in Chemistry and we’d casually talk if we happened to run into each other. Then one day there was a fire drill in the Chemistry building in the middle of class and I looked HORRIBLE…no makeup and stains on my clothes (sound familiar now sweetie?). I’d been cleaning all morning for my boyfriend to come visit from California…he was a surfer I met in Costa Rica. Anyway, Jon saw me and stopped to talk to me and he was just so nice and easy to talk to and he got my number and I remember thinking 2 things: first, what was I doing with the surfer who had no direction in his life, when there were guys like Jon out there who clearly had their act together and second, my friends were always looking for dates for their sorority or spirit group parties and he would be a really fun date, so I was going to tell Jenn (my roommate) about him for her upcoming Lasso formal b/c she had no idea who to invite.
So Jon and I started studying together for chemistry. I had to tell the other guy I’d been studying with that I’d found a new (smarter) study partner…but I didn’t tell him the smarter part. And I broke up with the surfer and told him I was looking for a more “President of the United States type guy.” And Jon and I would kind of flirt and I thought he was SOOO clever (b/c he was) and we really had fun together. The first time he came to my apartment to study, I told him it was the apartment with French doors and he got there and said, “Those aren’t French doors.” But he was just messing with me and he could convince me of anything. Another time we were doing Comm. Council office hours together and he was wearing an orange and blue sweater and I told him sweaters were my favorite things for guys to wear (Jon was usually dressed up in collared button-downs so he'd look presidential) and then a few minutes later his sister called and just happened to ask him what he wanted for Christmas and I heard him say
"I could use another sweater" and he winked at me. But I’d seen him around other people and he was definitely flirty and friendly with them too, so I couldn’t tell what was going on.
One day after we finished a Comm. Council office hour he asked me if I wanted to grab lunch with him at the Union. I told him I couldn’t b/c I didn’t have money with me (I was lying to see if he’d offer to pay to see if he was interested in me or just being friendly). He offered to pay! We ate at the stinky garlic pasta restaurant and it was our first date of sorts. I spent the whole time asking him questions to try and figure out if he was conservative or liberal and he never let on…he was such a politician about everything that you could never get a straight answer. He had an office in the Union he showed me and there was a big Union brochure with his front picture on the front and his backside on the back and he said he’d been having to autograph his famous “butt” a lot lately. We were both wearing periwinkle colored tops and khaki pants that day and I thought we would look cute together if we were a couple since we were matching…but it was just a fleeting thought.
We flirted a lot over email during the Thanksgiving holidays.
Then when we got back from Thanksgiving after Chemistry class he asked me to be his date to the Texas Exes Student Chapter Winter formal. I had never heard of the Texas Exes Student Chapter, but I said yes…it was a few weeks away. A few days later he asked me to go on a date with him that Friday night. I said yes.
Our first date was Friday, November 30, 2001. None of my clothes fit that night b/c of PMS and I tried on a million outfits and ended up wearing a plain black top with sheer long sleeves and red pants and the black and white hounds tooth wool coat my mom gave me (because it was really cold that night). We parked in a parking garage at the end of 4th street in his red mustang and there was a hand-made card from Charissa in the backseat w/ a turkey drawn on it and it said, “I love you Jon!” and he said it was from his little sister and I thought he must be a really good brother for her to do that for him. We were supposed to go to a new carribean Blues bar or something but it was too loud and Jon said he wanted for us to be able to talk so we went to Trulux down the street. Soon into the date I found out he led FCA in high school and I immediately felt like that gave me a “green light” to like him. And I think he could tell I was really excited to find out he was a Christian so he prayed before our meal. I was also really impressed that he took me to such a nice restaurant. My pecan-crusted rainbow trout was amazing, but I didn’t eat hardly anything b/c I didn’t want to look like a piggy since I already felt like one since none of my clothes had fit. After dinner we went to Esther’s Follies (a comedy theatre) where I really wanted to hold hands and I’d touch his arm when I’d talk to him (like how Seventeen magazine had said to do when you are trying to convery to a guy that you are interested) and WHOA he had HUGE muscles! I had not been able to tell if he was a tad pudgy because he was very filled-out…but it was 100% muscle and I was totally surprised and then I really wanted to hold hands. And we ended up doing that on the way back to his car because I finally convinced him my hands were so cold they were about to fall off (I was so manipulative!). In the car I made a Zeta joke and he told me his mom was a Zeta. We decided to walk around the Capitol grounds and it was really cold, but really beautiful and we were the only people there…holding hands, laughing, talking, freezing. Then we stopped under a big old historic tree with a historic marker and he took me in his arms and kissed me perfectly and I TOTALLY SAW FIREWORKS for the first time ever. When we got back to my apartment I thanked him for the date at the door of my apartment and he said, “No, thank you.” And we got into an argument over who should be thanking who, but then we kissed and made up. I went into my apartment and I was smiling so big and I just stood there in my kitchen for like two hours just standing there smiling. I couldn’t sleep and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding and I couldn't catch my breath. The next morning there were white roses & note on my door step when I woke up and the note said, “Thank You.”
Jon was the leader of the group that won the business fair that fall which was a big deal at UT. And he brought me beautiful flowers all the time and things just seemed to go perfect. One day we were eating chocolate chip cookies and he was picking out the chocolate chips to eat and I was eating around them and I blurted out, “We’re perfect for each other!”
We studied for our Chemistry exam together and we kept getting entropy confused with something else and entropy is cold going to hot and I blurted out, “Like sex.” And I was quick to explain I’d never had sex, it was just what I’d heard. We both got that right on the exam!
We went to the Texas Exes Student Chapter winter ball together and he remembered all the things I had told him I loved and listed them back to me and I thought he was a genius.
But then we went to the Comm. Council Christmas formal together and I got a little possessive and we both thought we were moving too fast and we just got it all out in the open and we got mad at each other for a little while. But sure enough we ended up working through it and it was the first time either of us had encountered a challenge in a relationship and worked through it, rather than running as far and fast as possible. So I learned early on that I couldn’t manipulate him and I couldn’t scare him off very easily...and I loved that about him.
Over Christmas break Jon came to Waco and met my parents. I had told him that most every boyfriend I had ever had had given me a cross necklace…to where it kind of became a running joke in my family. So he gave me a big cross necklace for Christmas in front of my parents and we thought it was really funny. We went out and started dancing w/out music in the gazebo in across from the Waco Family Center on Bosque Blvd. and that’s when I became his “girlfriend” and he gave me a shiny silver necklace and bracelet…my parents told me after he left that they thought he seemed a little conceited, but I thought it was probably just all the confidence he exuded and I loved that about him.
We also both went to Dallas over the Christmas break to visit our grandmothers and met up there. That’s when I met his mom, his grandmother, and sisters for the first time at the Dallas Galleria and we ate at Sonny Bryans in Macy’s and I wanted to impress them more than anything in the world. Afterwards he told me they told him they thought I was classy and I was elated.
At a New Year’s party on December 31, 2001 back in Austin, Jon told me he loved me and he had never said that to any girl before.
Soon after that he had lunch with him mom at Kirby Lane and got teary telling her that I was “the one.”
So we made lots of memories in college together:
♥ Hanging out at his apt. on Riverside (and I’d always bring Jon and Danny beer since they were a year younger than me and not 21 yet and I could tell this made them think I was really cool) and my apt. at 28th and Rio Grande “Parapet 101”
♥ I’d call him when I saw the possums outside my apartment that looked like giant rats and totally freaked me out
♥ he would talk to me and ask me what I thought about things and I could tell that he really listened and cared and valued what I had to say and that meant so much to me and made me feel so special
♥ One night I cooked a dinner for him and my friend Jenn and her new boyfriend, Erik, and I just found recipes and went to Central Market and bought all the ingredients in them and since I didn’t cook much (like never) I had to buy a lot of spices and things…and I cooked red snapper…and it cost over $200 for that dinner! And I had long hair and I had wore it down while I was cooking and kept running my fingers through it to keep it out of my face while cooking and somehow there was a lot of my hair in the angel hair pasta and as we were eating dinner and I discovered it I nearly fainted I was so mortified about the hairs and I prayed so hard no one else’s had hairs. Jon wore a sage green sweater shirt and looked really cute that night.
♥ Mexican lunches at the Tridelt house
♥ Working out “together” at the Rec. center
♥ I ate steak rare for the first time with him and he ate sushi for the first time with me
♥ In summer 2002 he studied in Mexico and brought me back a purple and black swim wrap and a black purse and silver jewelry from Mexico…he gave it to me at the Lakeway Inn where he worked and was hiding me from his boss
♥ Painting his apt. at San Pedro Oaks with his family
♥ Watching 24 together with Danny
♥ Six Flags for my 22nd birthday with the Speed passes…it was one of my favorite days of my whole life
♥ 1st dating anniversary in November 2002 on his parent’s boat on Lake Travis with strawberries and champagne and delicious sandwiches he made
♥ Being on the field with the Cowboys during football games
♥ Watching Lord of the Rings together on the front row on opening night and getting neck cramps
♥ Staying at the Village apts. for TX/OU and me being the only girl with like 20 guys
♥ Him getting teary eyed when he told Comm. Council why I’d be a good secretary
♥ Taking a road trip to meet Ty (then named "Oreo") at his dear wonderful foster family in The Woodlands in Houston and stopping at delicious “hole in the walls” on the way there and back
Jon ran for student body president of UT and lost and after that he hit rock bottom, and we broke up, but then God started to work on Jon and me and we started looking for a church.
We started going to Grace Covenant Church together (we hadn’t been faithfully attending church prior) and signed up for a Crown Financial ministry Bible Study at Tim and Mary Ellen’s house. That was such a special time for us as they opened their home to us every week and it was our first time to have Christian friends together. Along with the rest of the church Jon started reading through the Bible in a year and at about the middle of David’s life, I saw him transform into a whole new person. I had loved him and would have married him ego and all, but God made him humble and kind and a whole new creation. I deserved the ego-Jon, but God didn’t give me what I deserved, He gave me grace and mercy and a Jon better than I ever could have imagined…a Jon who loves God above all.
One day I totally lost it and started balling and said it was taking him way too long to propose (he would get a kick out of saying, "I have a question" and watch me say "Yes?" instantly and then he'd ask something totally random like what was the temperature outside) and told him I didn't know how much longer I could wait for him (yeah right...I would have waited for him for forever and little did I know that he had planned to propose the following week). I think that my tears and drama actually worked that time because the very next day, August 27, 2003, he proposed to me at the capitol (where I worked) with a tons of long-stemmed red roses and had the Senate messengers help by laying them out in a path from my office all the way (these Asian tourists were picking all of them up so it wasn’t as much of a trail as it had been originally) to the big tree where we had our first kiss and he was waiting for me there on one knee…he says I said yes before he even asked me anything…he’s probably right. We went to lunch at Pappadaux that day, then I went back to work and started (well continued) planning my wedding.
One week before our wedding, we drove our UHAUL from Texas up to Virginia (I’d never been to Virginia before and Jon had been once and picked out our apartment). I was such a mess with the move and the wedding being in a few days and not feeling like I had everything under control that I kept having nervous breakdowns -- to the extent that Jon didn’t think it was such a good idea for us to get married...he said something to the extent of having had made a mistake. And there was some tension because Jon had decided that we shouldn't even kiss on the cheek until the wedding. But he didn’t end up calling off the wedding thankfully.
We had a fairy-tale wedding with a reception in the ballroom of the Student Union building where we met.
We had a honeymoon in an isolated part of St. Lucia where everything went wrong and I was terrified the whole time of the scary-looking people walking around with machetes and the pit vipors, insects and lizards…it also had some uncanny similarities to the movie Just Married.
More memories:
♥ Camping with Jason and Joy when it was freezing and we were soaking wet b/c of the dew and yet they seemed to love it, but I was SOOOOO miserable.
♥ 1st Anniversary trip to Lexington, VA when I was pregnant...stayed at the Stoneridge B&B.
♥ Playing UNO and walking through the cemetery in the rain on the day Anna Kate was born.
♥ Going to the emergency room with Anna Kate when she was 2-weeks old and choked on spit-up and turned blue.
♥ Visiting the Taliaferros in D.C. for Madelyn’s 1st birthday and getting as sick as dogs where we couldn’t even move and the Miles got sick too and we’d call them and see how they were doing and they were both laying in bed just groaning just like us...that was the sickest we've ever been.
♥ Visiting the Taliaferros again in D.C. and seeing the city for the first time and we both fell in love with the National Museum of Art
♥ In Charlottesville at the Jeffersonian Apts #50 we’d walk to the softball fields with Ty, get Harris Teeter sandwiches, hang out w/ our neighbor Jackie, go to First Baptist Park Street Sunday School events, I’d meet him at LCF meetings, we spent Thanksgivings and Easters with friends like the Visgers, Miles and Byrnes and the Taliaferro family in Tapahanook, traveling to New York one weekend and freezing nearly to death, the first meal I ever cooked after we were married was Cooking Light Chicken and Ham Tertrazini and Jon loved it…he endured a lot of “flops” as I taught myself to cook, but I loved doing it and the people I worked with at UVA Human Resources were always so impressed by what I would make Jon...after Anna Kate was born I hung out with dear Carey Taliaferro and the Ngs and the Law Families moms and then our last year, dear Sarah Beth and those 3 years in law school flew by
♥ Now we have been in Dallas for two years, and for more about that, see blog… :)
