How I Met Your Father — Mom Knows Best

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How I Met Your Father — Mom Knows Best is a part of a series celebrating love and marriage by telling the stories of some of our Nashville Moms Blog contributors and how they met their partners. Enjoy more of these sweet stories here!

“As soon as I met you, I knew an adventure was about to happen…”

My mother and mother-in-law were best friends in college. They lived on the same hall and were both in very serious relationships with servicemen (my father was in the Navy; my father-in-law in the Army). Naturally, this meant Friday nights spent together over pizza and a bottle of Boon’s farm since their men were out of town. They remained friends after college. My mother-in-law actually sang at my parent’s wedding, and they continued to exchange Christmas cards and meet up when logistics permitted. The first time I saw my husband was actually in one of those Christmas cards.

family xmas photo

Flash forward to 2005 . . . the youngest of the Cody boys was on the volleyball team at West Point and playing a game in my hometown of Durham, NH. My parents met up with them for lunch to catch up and reminisce. At this lunch, they discovered that while their son Jason was living in San Antonio, TX, I had recently moved to Dallas. Jason (an Army officer) would be deploying later that year. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the kids could meet and continue the family friendship? Jason could really use a pen-pal…”

Day we met

He got a pen pal, alright. We started by exchanging emails and planned to meet (to satisfy our parents, of course…the picture of him in his uniform and flak vest had nothing to do with it). So on April 9, 2005—at a Starbucks in Killeen, TX—we met up for coffee. We chatted for several hours, and then the guy I was seeing (an Apache pilot stationed at Ft. Hood) picked me up. We broke up shortly thereafter. Jason and I began dating in late April/early May. On May 16, he (accidentally) told me he loved me. We met each other’s families over Memorial Day. On July 4, in Montpelier, VT, he proposed. And on July 24, he deployed to Kuwait.

Deployments are tough—they will either strengthen your relationship or destroy it. While we fell in love and committed to each other very quickly, the deployment gave us time to get to know each other without the luxury (or distraction) of clubs, Netflix, and physical intimacy. We regularly exchanged care packages—our favorite books and music—and letters. It’s remarkable how well you can come to know a person through written communication.

wedding1

He returned from his deployment in mid-January 2006, and I moved from Dallas to Georgia to be near him. We were married on September 23 of that same year. In the nearly 10 years we’ve been married, we’ve moved seven times, traveled to over 20 countries, and road tripped across America. We are the proud parents of a 3 year-old little boy and a brand new baby girl.

It hasn’t been easy being a Military Wife. I’m sick and tired of moving, it’s hard to constantly make and leave friends, and my professional career has definitely suffered—but I wouldn’t change a thing about the life we share. It’s been an incredible adventure, and I’m so blessed to have my husband as my partner.

Military Family

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