Six years is a LONG time... in dog years.

As most of you know, Justin and I recently celebrated our six-year wedding anniversary. As I look back at our eight years of dating and marriage, some funny things come to mind. So with no further ado, here is a list of the eight (one for each year of knowing each other) most funny and memorable moments in our marriage. They are in no particular order.

1. While finishing up our delicious meals and last bread sticks at The Olive Gardens (yes, with a capital "The" and a "Gardens" with a 's', cause that's how we roll in Utah), we contemplated ordering dessert. We were dating at the time. Justin was a poor college student, and me?... well BMG took all my money on their stupid, rip-off CD club (remember those?). Anyway, we decided to forgo dessert, until we saw the people at the table next to us leave -- leaving us a delicious, barely eaten chocolate lasagna on the table. Coincidence, I think not. How could we resist? After all, they were decent, clean looking ladies (men would have been a different story. Justin has told me of the going-ons in the men's room, and hand washing isn't one of them). So yes, we took it. We have no shame. We still wonder what the waiter must have thought.

I'll be dreaming of this cake tonight.

2. Justin would often take the train out to the suburbs to visit me while in college. On one particular day, he came out and was in need of a haircut. Problem solved! The people I worked for (I was a nanny for two school-aged boys at the time) had clippers and I kind of/barely knew how to cut hair -- that was good enough for him. So, we prepared a place in the kitchen. Justin took his shirt off and put the apron thingy on. A few snips later we were done. After cleaning up the mess, Justin hopped up on the kitchen counter (still shirtless) and sat down. I came over and cozied up to him. I was standing up, facing him, and he was sitting, pretty much straddling me. (I apologize to my parents and in-laws for that visualization). Some may say we were a little too cozy (not TOO cozy-- we did get married in the temple, after all) but we were madly in love so who cared? Well, John, my employer, probably cared when he walked through the door and saw Justin half naked, sitting on HIS kitchen counter, straddling and kissing me. I turned bright red and explained that it wasn't what it looked like. He simply smiled, covered his eyes, and said, "I didn't see anything". How were we to know he'd come home early? That incident was never talked about again. I think he was more embarrassed than we were.

It looks bad, huh? I can see why John never mentioned it again.

3. A couple days after we got married, we found ourselves at the Argent hotel on our pseudo honeymoon in San Francisco. The hotel was great, but their towels were even greater! Big and plush. There was only one thing to do, and that was to take them! So I did. We needed towels for our new place. They were awesome, and we used them throughout the whole summer. I think we left them at the place we were subletting. They are probably still being used somewhere in Berkeley. I'm still not sure if it was worth my eternal salvation, but they sure were big and comfy. Maybe I'll write an apology/Thank You letter to the Argent hotel.

Don't judge me... they were calling my name. It was meant to be.

4. When we were living in Berkeley, we decided to go visit my sister in LA. Everything was going according to plan until about 40 minutes before our flight was to arrive into Burbank. The captain had come on the PA and told us a small fire had ignited in the landing gear (which, by no coincidence, rhymes with fear), and that we would have to reroute to LAX (where they had a longer landing pad. Where we could burst into flames in peace) and do an emergency landing. We were a little scared, but quickly became A LOT scared when we saw the looks on the flight attendants' faces and heard the loud rhythmic beeping coming from the cockpit. The flight attendants went up and down the aisles speaking to everyone and making sure we all knew what to do. It was frightening to say the least. Babies were crying, people were hailing Mary and crossing their chest, grown men looked scared as hell, and we... well, we just held hands and told each other, "At least we're going down together". It all happened so fast after that. The captain came on the PA again and shouted "Heads down...stay down, heads down...stay down, heads down... stay down, over and over agian. We put our heads between our legs and prayed that we wouldn't explode upon arrival. I can't describe how relieved we were to feel the wheels hit the ground and come to a stop. Phew! I'll never forget looking out the window and seeing fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars just waiting to pull us from the wreckage that almost was. It's no wonder Justin's scared of flying.

This could've been us.

5. Not too long after we got married, I made shepherds pie for Justin. He took one bite of the stuff before spitting it out (actually I can't remember if he spit it out, but he was definitely disgusted). He said, "what is wrong with this!?". I simply replied, "We didn't have tomato sauce, so I used Manwich". Needless to say, you can't make shepherds pie with Manwich and I'll never be able to live that one down.

Sloppy Joes- Good! Shepherds Pie- Bad!

6. (This one isn't so funny, but quite memorable) In Boston, I worked for a lady who was... how can I put it?... passive aggressive and controlling. Anyway, it was Labor Day and I was told that I had the day off. So, Justin and I made plans. However, she called me the morning of and told me that I needed to work, saying mean things and hurting my feelings in the process. I hung up the phone and started to cry. Not because I was sad I had to work, but because she had said some really mean and spiteful things. Justin saw my pain and immediately went to the phone, picked it up, and called her back. He told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was in the wrong. He told her that I worked hard for her and that she had no right to make me feel the way she did. He then said that I would do what she needed me to do for that day, but that something like this would/should never happen again, and that she needed to show me some respect. I was shocked, embarrassed, and mad that he would do something like that. But, it wasn't long before those feelings turned into gratitude and love. He's just like Kasey on The Bachelorette "Always guarding and protecting my heart". Anyway, this whole thing peeved my boss off and she talked about it for months ("I would never call Justin's boss and say stuff like that" blah, blah, blah), but I didn't care. I was so proud of my brave husband for standing up to the person I feared the most.

Need I say more?

7. When we moved to Australia, we had pretty much nothing to our name, except our clothing in our suitcases. We had to start from scratch and buy EVERYTHING for our apartment. So we did. We bought all of our electronic stuff from a place called "Bing" and everything else from a place called "IKEA", you may have heard of it. Anyway, after a couple of crazy days (a story in and of itself) at Ikea, we purchased everything we needed. The big stuff, like the beds and couches, we had delivered, but everything else... we had to bring home on our own. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong! We didn't have a car so we took everything home with us on the train (the train with the doors that eat you whole if you don't get out of the way in time) because our cab decided the line at IKEA was too long and ditched us without notice. EVERYTHING in ONE trip! It was crazy, because not only did we have to take the train, but we had to walk to our house from the train. I'm talking toaster, curling iron, bed sheets, comforter, pillows, decorations, plates, silverware, towels, bowls, etc. Too funny.

With the experience we had at IKEA... this is probably true. However, I'm pretty sure we'll be doing lots of IKEA shopping in Cali. Here's hoping we have a better experience... and that I won't have to eat any genitalia .

8. Justin and I went to see the movie "The Terminal" in Berkeley. The movie was long, boring, and awful and we were sorely disappointed. We felt royally screwed that we paid so much money (it was a lot to us because we were newly married and poh... that's poorer than poor) for nothing. So we decided to sneak into another movie, "Dodgeball". Now, for all of you that know Justin, you know that he does NOT do these kind of things, especially in movie theaters that have big men in black shirts that say SECURITY in big, bold, white letters. They honestly have security guards in the theaters out there, and lots of the! Anywho, we didn't think the show would be sold out, but it pert near was. We didn't realize this 'til we picked our seats and settled in. Justin was too afraid to move a muscle so he didn't turn his head to look to see how full the theater was. He put his hoodie over his head (as if this made him invisible) and slumped down in his seat. To the untrained eye, he looked like a child to the people in back of him, because he had sunken so far down in his chair. There were a couple of times the guards came in to check tickets. We were so scared that they would catch us, take us in the back alley, beat us and leave us for dead. Finally the movie started. I don't think Justin watched the movie at all. He was literally afraid to move in fear we'd be seen and caught... and for what little of the movie he did see, he didn't enjoy because he was terrified. When the movie was over Justin was tense, pale and sweaty. It was the funniest thing. SO not worth the free movie.

No joke- the men looked like this. Why? What's going down at that theater?

Gosh, those are only eight memorable times out of hundreds... like the time we played airplane in bed and almost ended up in the ER. Or the time when we went down by the lake to make out and found ourselves lying in a burr bush. There's even the time when I was driving in my Jeep and let out an insanely big and disgusting burp. Justin tried to escape the horror while the vehicle was moving (this was while we were dating and why he married me, I'll never know). I could go on and on. What I'm saying is- we've had a great six years of marriage! Let's make this next one a good one... before the itch sets in. :)

Love you, J- Dawg!