Incidentally, how/when we met is actually a topic which has never been resolved. One thing IS certain, we both studied Physical Geography at Lancaster University, and we were in the same year. This is where the stories diverge...Simon's goes that we were in the same tutorial group in first year for another subject, and we spoke then.My version is that, while I had potentially seen Simon... but I certainly hadn't ever spoken to him before the middle of second year.
Christmas Ball after 2 months together
In any event, at the end of second year we started to 'date', having gotten to know one another while studying (or should that be 'studying'?!) for our exams, and things started off brilliantly. To throw a spanner in the works, I am from Northern Ireland while he is from England. To throw a chainsaw in there, I was spending summer 2007 at summer camp in the USA, followed by a family holiday in Mauritius. When we returned to uni in October 2007 for our final year, we picked up where we had left off, and spent that year together. Realising pretty early on that this was quite a serious thing, I lined up a job as a nanny in his native Norfolk for when we graduated in 2008, and we planned to go traveling after my sister's wedding in May 2009. The plan was for me to work in Norfolk until around March, but by Christmas I was too homesick and had to leave early. That left 4.5 months of living in different countries. We made a monthly trip to see one another and, before we knew it, we were on a round the world trip together.
In Sydney after 1.5 years together
When we arrived home, I started a PGCE, and Simon made the pretty amazing decision to uproot his whole life and move to live with me in NI. Obviously, at this point, we knew that we were heading for marriage and both knew we wanted a family, but we just weren't quite ready. Moving into 2010, I began to think more seriously about it all, and we discussed that by the end of that year, we would be engaged. Imagine my surprise when midway through the year, on holiday in Cornwall, he pulled out a beautiful ring! That kick started the busiest year of our lives - I started a new job, he took on our business, and we found and bought a house, all while planning a wedding!
22/07/2011 - married after almost 3 years together
We moved into our home in March 2011, and got married in July 2011. Then, it was baby time! Starting our family didn't come as easily as everything else had done, but we were delighted in January 2012 to find out I was pregnant! Unfortunately, our wonderful little baby wasn't meant to be with us, and it took us both quite a while to recover from our loss. We knew we still wanted a baby more than anything and in July 2012 we were blessed enough to fall pregnant again with our beautiful little lady.
10/04/2013 - Our family is completed after 5.5 years together
She joined us on April 10th, 2013 and since then, our little family has been happily muddling along, finding our way together. Hopefully, someday in the future, I'll be able to come back and amend this post to include the birth of our second baby. And third....and maybe even a fourth?!