burns brighter

four years ago, on april 10, 2004, bryan and i were married in the salt lake city temple--despite that on the way to the ceremony, my brother assured me that it still wasn't too late to back out.

to commemorate our union, i would like to illustrate, in four carefully chosen scenarios, why i stand by the decision i made that fateful morning more than 35,000 hours ago. in no particular order:

1 - when i was pregnant with summer, i was mad sick for 7 1/2 weeks. during this time, bryan got up every morning at 4:45am and made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and brought me a box of apple juice. while the pbj didn't necessarily help quell the sickness, bryan faithfully rose from bed each dawn to make me a dish he knew i would just...uh...toss...

2 - bryan has an alter ego known only as "the asleep huss." i often hold in depth conversations with him only to discover the next morning that bryan remembers none of it. but luckily, the asleep huss is also very romantic: he is always telling me how much he loves me and how beautiful i am. he frequently asks me what he can do for me and approves fantasy purchases. so even if "the awake huss" and i aren't getting along, i can always count on his sleeping self to be quite adoring.

3 - one day i came home and decided to sell all of our furniture. i spent the morning figuring out how much we had paid for each piece, calculating depreciation over the previous 1-3 years, taking pictures and preparing to post on craigslist. when i told bryan, he calmly allowed me to go about my business knowing that by nightfall, the storm would have passed. and it did; it always does.

4 - after an ill-fated atv trip two years ago, i went through a phase (which i am just beginning to emerge from) where i was deathly afraid to drive on the freeway. unfortunately, at the time, i was taking graduate classes in dc and living in baltimore--which is quite a drive almost entirely on high-speed roads. so bryan leaves his own graduate studies twice a week to drive me an hour to dc, sit for two and a half hours during my class, and then drives me an hour home. who does that?

i realize that by telling these stories, i am making myself look like *somewhat* of a spazz. but that's why bryan is the yin to my yang, the macaroni to my cheese. i haven't quite figured out what he's getting from the relationship...but let's hope whatever it is lasts at least another four years.