The things I do for my baby sister...

My sweet little sister Emily tagged me a few weeks. I don't have anything against being tagged, per se, and I totally meant to do it, it's just that I'm, how do I put this? Oh yeah--lazy. But we've covered that already. So I wasn't even a little bit surprised when Emily's question for me was, to paraphrase, "Why in the name of tarnation haven't you done that tag?"

So, for Em, or as I like to call her, Moe (when she was three, she said to our dad, "I know how to spell my name--M-O-E"), here are my answers. I'm hoping this also serves to answer a few of the other questions asked? You know, about our loooooove (say that like you are a 9-year old boy) story? (Please say yes.)

What is your husband's name? Kevan Duane
How long have you been married? 14 years, 5 months, and 17 days
How long did you date? 2 months, then engaged for 3. It helps that we went to high school together, so we already knew all the bad stuff about each other. And what the other one looked like with 80's hair. If that's not a test of love, I don't know what is.
How old is he? Old. Oh, I mean 36.
Who eats sweets? Uh, that would be me.
Who said "I Love You" first? Geez, I don't know. That was a long time and a lot of sleep deprivation ago.
Who is taller? He is--3 inches more if he stands up straight.
Who can sing best? Oh, easy--him.
Who is smarter? I think we're about equal, though he has this uncanny ability to remember stuff he learned in high school. Like, he'll reference some obscure biology fact, and I'll ask how the heck he knows that, and he'll say, "Mrs. White's 10th grade biology class." Then I'll tell him he's a nerd.
Who does the laundry? I do. It is long-standing knowledge that if Kevan's doing laundry it's because Sara's pregnant and too sick to care about what happens to the clothes.
Who pays the bills? Me. He's the income, I'm the outgo.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Depends on whether or not said "right side" is closest to the door or not--the rule is that I get to sleep as far away from the door as possible, therefore making him the first person with whom any child that should venture in comes in contact. This supports my rule of never making eye contact with a child after dark.
Who mows the lawn? If we had a lawn, that would so be Kev's job. Lawn and yard care falls under the category of "Boy Jobs," which is defined as, "Any and all jobs that, while I may be perfectly capable of doing them, I see no need to except in the case of deployment." Other jobs in this category include but are not limited to car upkeep, garbage taking-out, and child nail-clipping.
Who cooks dinner? I do most of the time.
Who drives? Here? Boy howdy you better believe it's Kevan. I only drive here if I have to. And by "have to" I mean "we will starve if I don't." That's the litmus test.
Who is the first to admit they are wrong? Well, if I were ever wrong, I'm sure it would be me.
Who kissed who first? Don't remember for sure, but the most likely scenario is that it was him kissing me.
Who asked who out first? You know, I actually think it was me. Oh wait, no, I asked him out for the first date we actually went on, but that was because I felt guilty for shooting him down when he asked me out and I already had a date with another guy. So I guess he asked first, but I asked first successfully.
Who wears the pants? We both like pants. He doesn't like skirts though. Except on me.
How did you meet? Technically we met in elementary school, but neither of us remembers the other one. Then we ended up at the same high school, but I don't remember ever actually meeting him--he was just this kid a grade higher than me who never tied his shoes. When he was a sophomore and I was a freshman, he had math with my sister (a senior) and English with my brother (a junior), and he asked Nathan once, "So, I know you and Teri are brother and sister, but how are you related to Sara?" And Nathan answered, "She's our cousin." We started hanging out in the same group of friends my junior year, during which time he was dating my best friend. Then he went away to college and then went on a mission, during which time I dated his best friend and moved to Texas (do you really need a link to tell you what Texas is?)(ok, fine). About 4 months after he got home from his mission, I moved back from Texas, and we met up again. He had apparently been spreading it around to our mutual friends that he was going to "chase me" (I still don't know what that means), but I was dating another guy I really liked, so I was not interested in being chased by anyone else. I went out with both of them a few times, and it didn't take long to realize that, wow, I actually liked Kevan more. We got married 5 months later. (And you may have noticed from the links that aforementioned best friends are now married to each other. Yes, we all still like each other, and no, it' s not weird. Mostly it just makes for a really funny story, which comes in handy when people find out we went to high school together and say, "Awww, you're high school sweethearts.")
Who's funnier? I dunno, we're both pretty darn funny. Especially the later at night it gets.
What was your first big fight? We'd been married a few months when I had a dream that we'd gotten into a big fight about whether or not our girls would get their ears pierced (Kevan's mom and sisters don't have pierced ears). After I woke up, I told Kevan about the dream, and he laughed and said, "That's silly. Of course they won't." And then we got into a big fight about whether or not our girls would get their ears pierced. Now he claims no recollection of this conversation ever occurring, and the terms of any piercing that may or may not happen have been negotiated to everyone's satisfaction. Except maybe Grandpa Lewis's. (Sorry, Ted.)
What makes your hubby cranky? Things that are irritating.

I don't have a bunch of cute pictures to show you a chronology of our life together, like Emily, because we were married in the olden days before these new-fangled digital cameras were invented. We did have indoor plumbing though, so it's all good. I can show you a recent favorite though, taken last month just before he left for Saudi. It's a series, really. Crying out to be framed together and preserved for posterity.