5 years ago today, January 22, 2004

Today is the 5 year anniversary of our first kiss! It is such a good story I decided to post it on our blog. 5 years ago today, on a cold night in Rexburg, Idaho Mark and Aprillee kissed for the first time...

Mark and I had been dating since November 2003 and had not kissed on the lips yet. When school started up again in January we made a deal that we would cook dinner for each other one night a week. I believe I cooked for Mark on Wednesdays and he cooked for me on Thursdays. This particular Thursday night I walked over to Mark's apartment only to be greeted at the stairs by his former roommate Chris. Chris was in a suit and walked over to me and opened the door to his car for me and drove me over (as my chauffeur) to his and his wife's apartment. We walked upstairs to their apartment and there was Mark! Chris and Michele left with knowing smiles and Mark and I were alone in their apartment which was highly frowned upon at the time at BYU Idaho. There was a candle-lit dinner set up and Mark turned on some love songs and brought out a delicious dinner of Chicken Tetrazzini. Now this dinner was not served on any ordinary plates but it was served on the dishes from the picnic basket that Mark's sister Kristi gave to Mark as a Christmas present. She figured he could use it up in Rexburg. (This basket will be featured again this coming April.) So we ate dinner and danced to a few songs and then Mark said he would be right back. He went into the bedroom (I did not!!) and brought out a beautiful boquet of flowers. My favorite flowers are daffodils. They are really not that easy to come by and Mark drove down to Rigby to find some. (Rigby is like 15 minutes away so not too far but still the extra effort!) There were daffodils and one red rose. I was so excited to see the flowers and then Mark pointed to one and said "what's in here?" I looked down into it and there was a wrapper. I pulled it out and saw that it was a Hershey kiss wrapper and inside the wrapper was a little note that said, "Where is the Kiss?" (Mark said that the note was my cue in case I forgot to ask.) So I smiled and looked up at Mark expectantly and we kissed! It was so sweet. After we cleaned up dinner and probably kissed again... we drove over to the store, good old Broulims, and bought ice cream for our roommates. At BYU-Idaho it was tradition to give your roommates M&M's when you held hands with someone and ice cream when you kissed someone for the first time. Mark also bought me a bag of Hershey kisses that had a note taped on them that said "redeemable at any time."

THE basket!

Here is the scrapbook page I made for the occasion. (I scanned it with out new printer/scanner/copier that we got for 35$! Such a deal!) If you click on it it will enlarge. The page has the flowers, ice cream and bag of kisses with the note that Mark gave me and us!



January 22, 2009! Not too much has changed. This time there was a yellow rose with daffodoils instead of red and a cute little book about kisses, no hershey kisses this time.

Mark is such a sweetheart! I am so lucky to have such a thoughtful husband. I love romantic gestures and feel so loved when Mark does them. I think he has gotten me flowers every year on January 22 specifically. He is an amazing husband and makes me so happy! Thanks for all the great kisses Markus!