Mawiage. Mawiage is what bwings us togevwa today.

Toby and I recently celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. As usual, we did nothing special. We're not the big fussy celebratory type of couple. But whenever our anniversary rolls around I think about the day we were married and I have a lot of fun memories!

Like when my sister, Joanna, was sent by my mother to the distribution center across the street from the Manti Temple and was charged at by an angry cow. I wasn't there, but the mental image is priceless.

Or the fact that I was like 20 minutes late for the ceremony and when we pulled into the parking lot at the Temple, Toby was by the doors in his suit pacing like a crazy person and then sprinted thru the parking lot to meet my mom and I. He thought I wasn't coming at all.

Or my sister-in-law Joyce's mother dumping a box of rice on our heads as we got in our car to go home for the night because she claimed throwing rice meant the couple would be blessed with fertility.

Or that virtually everyone in my wedding party had used the very hip three barrelled curling iron on their hair. Myself included. It was very 2001 of us. Joanna, April, Darcy and I all had essentially the same hairdo. Classy stuff I tell ya.

Or the lovely sight of Toby's sisters and sisters-in-law dressing up in various colored pleather skirts and serenading us with a rousing rendition of "On Top of Spaghetti".

Or the night before the wedding when all my girl friends stayed at my apartment and were playing the completely inappropriate game my friend, Eve, got for me for the wedding and horrifying my naive 17 year old roommate. The game even included a "massager" and in Eve's completely un-sex-educated world at the time she actually thought it was for a back massage. We told her otherwise and she nearly passed out.

Or sitting on the little sofa in the sealing room while people were coming into the room before the ceremony and consciously thinking "they're gonna close that door soon so if I'm gonna run, now's the time". I wonder why Toby was afraid I wasn't going to show up in the first place? Toby put his hand on mine at that very moment and I felt a rush of surety at my decision to marry him. I stayed, sobbing thru the whole ceremony (tears of joy, I promise) and it's the best decision I've ever made!

Or hearing from my dad and sister that they caravaned home with my mom and had to pull up beside her on the freeway and signal her to step on the gas pedal. She was going 35 on the freeway.

But my favorite memory is while we were on our honeymoon in Georgia. My sweet aunt and uncle let us stay in their lake house for the week as our wedding gift. They drove us up there, took us grocery shopping so we'd have food for the week, left us with a car, the boat & jet ski keys and we had a blast.

Keep in mind I was barely 20 years old when we got married and I was fairly sheltered. The best part of the trip was when my aunt came down from the bedroom upstairs. She announced very matter-of-factly that she had put the satin sheets on the bed in the master bedroom but, she said, "if you find you need more traction, there are some flannel sheets in the dresser drawer." The fact that people I knew and loved were aware I would be having sex in their home and that they were ok with that mortified me to my soul!

Lots of fun memories. Here's hoping we have years and decades more of them to come!