Happy 24/7!

This might sound neurotic, but I've always had a fascination with timelines. Even as a kid, I'd calculate out how far I was from something exciting in the future (like school ending, or my birthday, or Christmas) by counting that many weeks BEHIND me—giving me an idea of the time involved. When I say things to people like, "hey! There's been as much time between meeting Matt and now, as between 1st grade and knowing Matt!," I always expect it will make perfect sense. And, instead, people always say something like, "HUH? ... Whatever THAT means." What do you mean, whatever that means? Anyway, apparently I'm totally bizarre and eccentric and nonsensical about this. But I love to know how far I am from various events—whether in the past or future.

Which is why my phone is AWESOME to me!! It has a...ooohhhh.... Sit down for this.... A day-counter. [Oooooh.... AHHHH....] It's the coolest thing ever!! You can put in a date, and it will tell you how far you are from it—in either direction! You can also ask it, what date is 43 days from now...? And it will tell you. It's totally sublime.

Upon discovering this function, I immediately plugged in a bunch of milestones. For instance, whenever I even LOOK at my phone, it now tells me how many days before Jordan comes home from El Salvador—421, by the way. When I open the application, I can look at a larger variety of statistics: how long Jordan has been gone, how long I've been alive, how long Matt's been alive, how long random people I think of have been alive (don't be surprised when I call to wish you a happy 12,000th day... :)), how long we've been married, how many days between being married and Seth's birth (if we were going to have a baby on February 3, 2010, it would be the exact number of days between Seth and the new baby as between our wedding and Seth, making Seth the exact midpoint between wedding and baby #2! hehe. But we're not. But if we WERE.... See? These are the kinds of stats I actually enjoy calculating...), how many days my parents have been married, etc., etc. Ad nauseum. :)

Which brings me to the story of today!

When I first got my phone, I noted we had been married approximately 2250 days. And, of course, as many of you know, 24 is beyond a great number. It's THE number. I thought, AWWWWWE-SOMMMMMMME!!! Our 2400th day of marriage is coming! I told Matt. He, of course, was ecstatic. Hehe. I said, "Matt! We've GOT to celebrate our 2400th day!" He said, "YEAH!! TOTALLY!! I can't wait!!" Or something to that effect.... ;)

I calculated what day it would be.... 

And it just so turned out to be...

June 22nd.

I did a double-take. I gasped. I calculated it again. I passed out from shock. I woke up thinking how all of my timeline-numbers-stats dreams came true with this one...! Hehe. 

June 22 is not only our 2400th day of marriage, it is ALSO the 7th anniversary of the day we got engaged! And, as every Hebrew enthusiast knows, seven is the "perfect" number. Having these two things coincide was SO unthinkably cool, I briefly wondered if Matt had actually planned it in advance (so that's why he wanted to be married in November...!). Ha ha! No, it was just fate.... :) YES!

We've had a fun day celebrating. We thought about going out to a nice dinner or something, but then I was thinking about the day we got engaged and decided we should pay more homage to it than just going out to dinner. :) On the day Matt popped the question, he had chased down a very late FedEx truck, (with the ring in it! He waited and waited and then, while pacing in front of the window, saw it leaving the street without having stopped at the address! Whew!! Poor freaking-out Matt...), packed a picnic lunch, got stuck in traffic behind some silly parade of some po-dunk silly Utah town, picked me up, took me up into the mountains for a little hike, found a nice little log to sit for our picnic lunch (oh yeah, and also to ask me to marry him and kiss me :)), bought some shakes, and took me to a little park where we sat on the grass eating our shakes, staring at my ring, and saying things like, "woo hoo!! We're engaged!!" 

So, for our 24/7 anniversary, I packed a picnic lunch and took us to a canyon park nearby that we've always wanted to hike through. I couldn't think of a way to have to chase down a FedEx truck.... But I tried. Hehe. I also couldn't find a parade in town to get stuck in traffic behind—but maybe it can count that, very recently, we were thwarted in a billion different places when the San Diego Marathon took over our exact routes to every place we want to go (grrr...). The memory still stings enough for it to have happened today. ;) So we went to the San Clemente Canyon trails near our house, hoping to find a log to sit on for our picnic lunch. Instead, what we found was.... POISON OAK!! Tons, and TONS of poison oak! I've seen a lot of poison oak in my life—but NEVER this overgrown. It was truly awe-inspiring. And intimidating. Especially with Seth around, and especially since we'll be seeing my mom several times in the next few years—which is about how long it takes for the oil to leave clothing enough that her skin won't blow up upon contact. Anyway, we were thwarted. Fitting. Hehe.

We considered going to another hiking place, but decided our events would just fail to coincide perfectly, and went to the park for our picnic lunch instead of milkshakes. Let me just say.... Our life situation has improved immensely in the last seven years. Ha ha ha! We weren't at no park in Provo, people. :) And it wasn't no hundred degrees. (And we were also about to discover a chocolate malt so far superior to the one 7 years ago from the famed Provo "Malt Shoppe" that they really shouldn't get to be called the same thing. Mmmm!!!!) We went to one of our favorite parks in Mission Beach. It's super-quiet, right in the tiny isthmus between the ocean, the bay, and the river. Coolest place ever. (Literally, the bay at your front, the river at your back, and the ocean maybe 100 yards off to the side.) Seth played on toys, and we watched sailboats and the sunset while munching our yummy picnic.

And then it was off to Ocean Beach for that amazing chocolate malt. Which we just ate in the car on the way home.... (Did I mention it was amazing? :))

All in all, a fun day! So Happy 24/7 to us! 

Because Happy 24/7 is what I am when it comes to spending life with Matt. (Aw.... ;))