Before We Were Mommy and Daddy (Intro)

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to cleaning up/organizing my basement and experienced a bit of nostalgia as I dug through boxes and remembered this whole "other life" Jeff and I lived before becoming parents.  As high school sweethearts, we dated for almost six years before we got married, and were married for four before Sam was born.  During those ten years, we were extremely fortunate and able to have LOTS of incredible experiences "just the two of us" including a six month study-abroad in London/ travel all over Europe, skiing in Park City, Utah and Breckenridge, Colorado, a three week cross-country road trip, and many other smaller trips etc.

As I labeled boxes of "camping gear," "skiing gear," "travel guides," etc. I couldn't help but wonder if Sam would ever know how "fun" and "cool" we were before we became Mommy and Daddy.  (Ha!) Sure, I hope that one day - in the not so distant future - we will be able to introduce our kids to many of the things we used to love to do together and build new traditions of travel and adventure with them, but there will always be a season of our lives and relationship that they will never really know.

Of course, it goes without saying that we chose to trade in weekend getaways for car seats and Sesame Street Live, and we would absolutely not have it ANY other way!  While I will be forever grateful for those years of adventuring with just Jeff and a single back pack, becoming parents FAR outweighs any of the other experiences we've had together.  

Print from BWPrints on Etsy/ on sale at Brickyard Buffalo now!

Still... It makes me a little sad to think that Sam might not ever look at his Daddy and see a shaggy-haired kid hanging upside down from a zip line or scaling a rock wall with no net the way I do.  He will probably never think of Mommy as someone who used to ski Black Diamonds or once hiked overnight in the Bavarian Alps.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to be posting some stories here in the next few weeks about our life together "before we were Mommy and Daddy."  These will mostly be for Sam (and any future kids), but I hope you all will enjoy the little trip down memory lane too as I recount the days when we were just "Jeff and E."   

Stay tuned!

* I've written about our high school "love story" already here, and all the details of our cross-country road trip in 2010 are here.  

Also, if you've never seen it before, here is the video we showed at our rehearsal dinner in 2007 that pretty much covers the first 23 years of our lives (and makes me cry every time):