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Seeing as it is R and my fouryearaversary, now seems like an appropriate time to tell the story of how we got together in the first place.

The place: San Diego
The day: Friday of Finals Week

In celebration of finishing finals, a group of friends and I were going to Las Vegas for a couple of nights. My friend and I wound up driving, as there were too many people to take only one car. We met up on campus and then split up into separate cars. My friend got two guys, and I wound up with her ex-boyfriend and a guy we needed to pick up on the way. I wasn't too sure about having her ex-boyfriend in the car with me, as they had had a rough break-up and I thought he was crazy, so I walked off and assumed that he would follow me if he was determined to ride in my car. He followed me (didn't want to ride with his ex, logically enough), and as we drove to the house of the other guy, my friend's ex struck up a conversation with me about the newly begun war in Iraq. At the time, I was planning on going into the reserves to pay for school, so it was actually a very relevant topic. We got to talking and found that we had a lot of things in common. Plus, he smelled really good. Really good. It filled the car, and so the whole drive to Las Vegas I was trying to be inconspicuous as I filled my lungs with his scent. I feel slightly bad for the guy we picked up, because the whole four hour drive he was forced to listed to us get to know each other. He was a good sport about the whole thing.

As we were packing up to leave Las Vegas, R found this plastic baseball and threw the thing at me from across the parking lot. He hit me right on the noggin, which he really couldn't have done if he had tried, but I didn't get mad (at which point he could tell I was the right girl for him). The plastic baseball made it into the trunk of my car, and, later, into our first apartment. It has followed us around since then, and I suspect it will wind up on top of our wedding cake, if only to confuse all of the guests.

Happy Fouryearaversary, R. Here's to 4⁴ more years. Love you.