Birthday Post #1: Phone Connection

For my Hubs, who still makes my heart pitter-patter with his singing phone messages...

I met Dennis a little over 6 years ago while working at a summer camp together in Michigan.  It was, how shall I say, an instant crush...on my end of things, at least.  My little, never-dated-before heart would well up every time I would see him around the campground.  I would volunteer to work the dish room if it meant hosing down dirty plates alongside him.  You get the point- it was love at first sight:)

But all things come to an end and we went our separate ways that August.  I vividly remember the first phone call.  It was my 21st birthday and I was with my family in Indiana.  Bekah was visiting to celebrate and we were in my 99' Civic on our way to dinner.  I see an (810) number call in and almost pass out right then and there.  Bekah, you'll have to refresh my memory, but I believe it went something like us screaming like school girls while I covered the mouthpiece on my cell phone?  Dennis proceed to say something romantic like, "I remembered it was your birthday because it's also my friend's birthday," and I squealed with delight. If only you could away with that now, babe. 

Dennis' 24th birthday was a couple months later and I spent hours deliberating how I could wish him a happy birthday without being too obvious.  So I wrote him a poem, because that wasn't obvious AT ALL.  Bless my boyfriend-less existence up until that point.  I counted down the days until October 23rd and when I couldn't contain myself anymore, I called him up to share my poetic birthday wishes.  Dennis was a gentleman, of course, completely obliging me without making me feel dumb.  My heart was racing the entire phone call and he could probably hear my voice trembling a bit.  At the end of our conversation, he sweetly reminded me that his birthday had already passed...13 days ago.  

Looking back, I think those birthday phone calls were pivotal in our journey.  They gave us something to hide behind while we figured things out and were growing the courage to say how we felt about the other.  Our phone call in October marked the beginning of monthly phone chats for the next year that would go for hours.  We still remember those fondly and believe they built the foundation of our friendship today. 

Happy Birthday Dennis- to the man who I can still run up a phone bill talking to:)