Happy Anniversary, Steve!

Today is Steve’s and my anniversary. I bet you can’t guess how many years we’ve been married! Let’s put it this way, it’s been a LOT. And I love him more and more every year. We are such different people than we were back then, and have grown together in so many ways. The secret? Let him have the remote control. (Just kidding, Steve!! I love you!)

Okay, we’ve been married for 17 years and together for 18. Were any of you even close to guessing (other than those of you who obviously know)? Now, our big secret, which isn’t really a secret any more, is that we were married twice. We got married in England on November 6th, 1991. Steve had never met my family, had never been to the US, had never even been on a plane!! It was pretty impulsive. I’m going to have to post a photo, but I don’t have any scanned in yet. Maybe I’ll update tonight… I wore a short-sleeved vintage black lace dress with crinolines underneath, and had just gotten my down-to-my-waist length extensions re-done. I think I was wearing black boots on my feet, but can’t remember off-hand. Steve wore a multi-color paisley button-down shirt, a black suede waistcoat (vest, to all you Americans), black stretch jeans and cowboy boots. His long, black hair was back in a ponytail. We got married in the local Rugby registry office (Rugby’s a town, by the way, and yes, it is where the game was invented).

A year later, we had a ceremony here in the US, but nobody (other than the minister who married us) knew that we had been married already the year before. We promised her that we’d tell my parents eventually, and settled on the arbitrary date of the birth of our first child to help lessen the shock (okay, okay, we had no idea that the birth of our child wouldn’t be until 15 years later!!). I have to thank my parents for being so gracious upon receiving that news…

Anyway, I did a little bit of memory-lane fact checking to take you all back to 1991 and to put into perspective exactly how long ago 17 years was!

George Bush Senior was President and Dan Quayle was Vice President.
The Soviet Union ceased to exist.
Jamie Lynn Spears was born (ugh).
Freddy Mercury died.
The Gulf War began and ended.
Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested.
Pee Wee Herman was arrested (I’ll skip the details).
The World Wide Web is launched to the public (ohhhhhh, now THIS makes me feel old!).
PanAmerican World Airways ended operations (Really? They’re not around anymore?).
The cost of a 1st class stamp was $.25.
Dances With Wolves won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Nirvana had a hit with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the grunge movement took off.
Silence of the Lambs, Beauty and the Beast, JFK and Thelma and Louise were shown in theaters.
The average cost of a movie ticket was $4.21.
There were 7,557,148 cell phone users in 1991, compared to 233,000,000 in 2006.
The Motorola MicroTac Lite cell phone became available for about $1,000.