Four years ago today my husband Matt and I started dating. It’s crazy that we have a new wedding anniversary to celebrate, but I still love celebrating November 6th 🙂 We were juniors in college when we met through mutual friends, but our first date was at the beginning of senior year of college. He asked me to be his girlfriend about a month after going on dates. I love looking back at our dating years and can’t wait to share our favorite memories!
IT STARTED WITH CRIBBAGE
The first night Matt and I met, we played the game kemps with some friends and ended up being partners. Almost a year later when we started dating, he taught me how to play cribbage and it became a special part of our relationship. He asked me to be his girlfriend by dealing me a hand with the question in a game of cribbage. It was the first of many romantic gestures in our relationship 🙂 PS this engraved cribbage board is a wedding gift we got and it meant so much to us!!
APPLE ORCHARD
One of our first dates was to Ferguson’s apple orchard near our college town in WI, and we had a blast getting to know each other. It was the first picture we ever took together! Ever since then, we have gone on apple orchard dates each fall to celebrate our relationship. We will definitely have to find somewhere to go in Utah!
BADGER & PACKER FOOTBALL GAMES
Since Matt had his own football season each fall growing up, he didn’t have a chance to go to Camp Randall or Lambeau Field for a football game. We got tickets to both so he could experience the tailgating, crowd, and energy at the games! The Badger game was during a beautiful fall day in October, and the Packer game was in the middle of January on a zero degree day. I have never bundled up more in my life, but it was so fun!
GRANDAD HALF MARATHON
After my college swim season was done in March, I loved switching up my workout routine and started training for the half marathon in our college town in early May! I had split the marathon in half with a friend the previous year and did 6.5 miles to complete a half marathon relay. I convinced Matt that running was fun 🙂 so we trained together and ended up doing 2 half marathon relays together while we were in college! It was such a fun challenge to do together and although we don’t run much anymore, I hope we can do it again in Utah!
COLLEGE GRADUATION
The first time our families met was college graduation weekend! Our majors lined up to be at the same ceremony, so it was fun to see each other cross the stage 🙂 Since my parents are close by, we had a family lunch after the ceremony and he had a party that night at his college house! It was so fun for everyone to get to know each other. That was almost exactly a year before we got engaged which is crazy!
NASHVILLE
Our first trip together was our post graduation trip with two of our friends to Nashville! We went memorial day weekend since I had a few weeks off before starting my full time job, so we road tripped from WI and spent the long weekend there! We got to experience the downtown, live music, hall of fame museum, food, and everything Nashville has to offer! We definitely want to go back soon!
CHICAGO
About a month before getting engaged, we flew to Chicago for a weekend getaway and got to visit with friends while we were there! Matt had never been to Chicago, so it was fun to show him my favorite tourist spots like Navy Pier, Millennium Park, Michigan Ave, the riverwalk, and some of my favorite bars and restaurants! It was a trip we will never forget, despite the cold and rainy weather we had in late March 🙂
Looking back at all of these memories makes me smile so big! Happy 4 years Matthew 🙂
