Our First Date...The Memories!!

Here are some pics I took of the 63 diner on our 5th Anniversary. This was one place from our first date. Our first date was August 16th (or 17th...can't remember which...whatever that Saturday was that year) of 2002. We doubled with Steven Richardson and Anne Jacobs. It was a tribute to Elvis Presley as his birthday was around that day or something I think. So we went to dinner at the 63 diner, which had tons of memorabilia of him and others from his time. Then we went to watch an outside play at the Maple Wood Barn Theater (which would later be the official place Nick proposed to me.) The play was Bye Bye Birdie. Being an outside theater we took camping chairs to sit on. One thing that impressed Nick like crazy was that when he popped his trunk, I grabbed for my chair and offered to carry my own chair. I'm not sure why that impressed him so much, but it did. What impressed me about him was that he was so chivalrous to me that night. Opening doors, pulling out chairs, offering to get me water or anything I wanted during the play.

Oh...and another cute memory from this night was the flowers...err...the phone book. I was house-sitting for the Loves that weekend and he came to pick me up there. One thing that I did in Columbia that I learned from my sister, Katie was to always carry a phone book in my car in case you got lost or needed a number or something...this was before all the I-phones and GPS's. Well, I only had a big phone book and didn’t even know that a smaller version existed. Well, when Nick came to pick me up for our date, instead of bringing flowers, he brought me a small phone book that would fit better in my car. He said as he was walking up the sidewalk to get me, he thought he should have folded the pages to make it look like a big flower; well he didn’t have time at that point, so instead he told me. I thought it was very cute and sweet. I still have that phone book today and ironically, it’s still in my car even though we don’t live in Columbia anymore…I just don’t have the heart to take it out yet! But, that's my Nick, always being sweet, but practical at the same time!

Another thing that I thought was sweet and cute was at the end of our date. I knew Nick really liked me as our sisters, Katie and Michelle were really good friends and would talk and in turn tell us some information here and there. I was worried about the whole, walk you to the door thing…do you kiss, shake hands, hug…what? Well, as I soon learned throughout the rest of our courtship, Nick is pretty forward but polite. So, he asked me if he could give me a hug at the end. Of course I said yes as I liked him a lot too and he proceeded to give me a hug only to step on my foot! It was funny and cute! Well, a year later we got married and here we are! But we were sad to see that the 63 diner was closed where we first went out…oh well…I guess we’ll have to make a new memory of something first together!