The wonderful, beautiful, and sweet Betty Beguiles (who I am bummed I won’t get to meet soon because I’m not going to Mom’s Day Away) has asked her readers to share ten facts about them and their better halves. So….here we go:
1.
We prayed each other into our lives. Literally.
I was going through a rough time my freshman year in college and prayed God would send me a husband, not a boyfriend. After one disasterous clearly-not-husband-material guy I got a wrong number call one night in my dorm. Initially I thought I was talking to the aforementioned unmarriagable guy but a couple of minutes in realized it was not him. I did something totally uncharacteristic and kept talking to this guy on the phone as if I knew him. An hour and a half in he asked, “Who is this?” All of the numbers on campus started with the same prefix and he was one number off of the girl he intended to call. After two months of phone calls, we met face to face for the first time. Four years, one month, and four days after that first face to face meeting we were married. Normally I would have just hung up on a stranger I was talking to under presumed pretenses, embarrassed. But God uses mysterious ways sometimes and although I certainly didn’t think some random guy I was talking with on the phone was ever going to want to meet me, much less end up marrying me, something definitely said to stay on the line. I’m rather glad I did.
2.
Our first official date was to watch the sunset on the southend of Wrightsville Beach and then get dinner at the Oceanic Restaurant on Crystal Pier. He came up with it himself. Very romantic. We also got engaged, on Christmas Day, at sunrise on the southend of Wrightsville Beach.
3.
Our first dance song at our wedding was originally going to be To Make You Feel My Love the version by Garth Brooks in the movie Hope Floats. However, our dj could not find the cd so it ended up being At Last sung by Etta James. Which was pretty perfect too.
4.
My husband is the second of four boys. I have three younger brothers. It was VERY controversial, particularly with his family, when we decided not to find out the sex of our first child. After years of infertility and a major surgery, we were just thrilled to be given the chance to be parents. My entire pregnancy all I heard was “All the Herretts are boys.” Between that and my personal knowledge of pregnancy typically resulting in a boy, I had ZERO expectations of having anything else. In fact, only my BFF (who was pregnant with her first and a girl at the same time) said I was going to have a girl. Anyway, when I heard him say, “it’s a girl!” in the OR, I didn’t believe him (or the OB or the nurses) until I changed her first diaper. Shocked, was I.
5.
The only more shocking thing to having a girl in my pregnancies/births was when my next child and oldest son was born. Coming out pale-skinned, blond haired and blue-eyed, I heard Jeff ask the OB, who is that child’s mother? That’s how I found out I have those recessive traits.
6.
Our oldest son, that little boy with pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes (can you tell 3 1/2 years later I am still in shock) is named Joseph Patrick which I finally twisted Jeff’s arm into agreeing to which we finally came to an agreement on eight hours after he was born. Jeff insisted he get to pick the name because I changed Shelby’s name after I saw her. However, Jeff couldn’t make his mind up. I had named him when I was five months pregnant a week after the anantomy scan told us we were having a boy. We went into the OR with six boys names which were: Joseph Patrick, William Christopher, Noah Charles, Henry James, Nicholas Andrew and Leo Emory. After seeing Joey he narrowed it to Joseph Patrick and William Christopher. Finally he agreed to name this son Joseph Patrick and our next son William Christopher (which obviously did happen 20 months later).
7.
Jeff said he knew he would marry me when I said in a conversation early in our relationship that I loved Neil Young. According to Jeff, “No girls love Neil Young.” Well, no girls he had met to that point…
8.
For our first anniversary we went to dinner at a local brewery where they offer a “sampler plate” of their beers. I drank every drop of that beer, not because I loved it (some of it was great, some not for me) and Jeff said after that night he will never call me a light weight again.
9.
We’ve been to see Bruce Springsteen together 3 times. It would have been four, but I was scheduled to give birth to Will the day after that last concert. We opted to sleep at home rather than risk something happen to me and the baby on the road.
10.
Last year for Valentine’s Day we convinced my parents to babysit the kids while we took a weekend in Morehead City. Where is snowed seven inches. It never snows there. But it made it pretty special.
St Monica's Bridge 
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