As 2009 comes to a close along with the decade, a number of “Top 10″ lists are popping up.  Most of the one’s I’ve read focus on pop culture and the media.  Since this blog is about us, I’m going create my own list… “top 10″ moments of our lives together. Here the are, in chronological order:

1) January 11, 2003 – our skiing “date” at Whitetail Resort.  After much discussion, I agreed to go with Justin and Jingles for night skiing.  Not having ever successfully skied before, I really had no appropriate attire, so everything was borrowed from his sister.  While I waited in the Parmelee’s living room, I expressed my fears about getting off the chair lift to his father, who, reassuringly replied “as long as the chair doesn’t hit you in the back of the head, you’ll be fine!”    (thanks Les!)  As it turns out, I only had one attempt at this, after which we skied down and then back up hill in order to avoid the lift completely.

2) February 14, 2003:  As detailed in an earlier post, this was a significant date turned weekend adventure for us.  Snowed into my apartment in Frostburg, this weekend changed the course of our relationship.

3) Multiple Dates between January 2004- August 2005 – hosting parties/cookouts, etc. with our friends at Syracuse.  In spite of a rocky beginning and end of our time in Syracuse, we developed several strong friendships that have, to this day, endured time and distance.  My favorite memories of Syracuse involve our almost frequent get tog-ethers with our friends, usually at our apartment.  It was during that period of time that I realized how similar Justin and I are – we love to host a party, break out the grill, guacamole, some drinks and just enjoy the company of friends.

4) April, 2004:  During this month, we took a 10 day trip down the western seaboard from Seattle to San Francisco.  We drove the entire route and learned that we both have a strong appreciation for going “off book” when traveling.  Although we had a carefully planned itinerary, we found ourselves taking a side trip to see a part of the coast and adding an extra day to our Portland, OR stop-over.  For better or worse, we learned then that our shared desire for spontaneity gave us more control over the trip than an itinerary did.  Perhaps this is why we were motivated to alter so many aspects of our honeymoon trip 3 years later!   I wish I had some pictures to share here, but unfortunately, it happened “BMM” (before my Mac).

5) 9/1/2005: We moved into our first apartment on Beacon Street on this hot, humid, miserable day.   Our apartment was on the 3rd floor of an old brownstone (read: walk-up/no elevators).  For the past month, 90% of our belongings had been stored away and on September 1st our mission was to move them load by load from the storage facility – to the truck – to the apartment – and return the truck by midnight.  We started our day at roughly 6AM and by  approximately 11AM, we were taking turns being “cheerful.”  I’ve not always been a very happy Comcast customer, however, I do have to give props to the two guys who installed our cable that day.  Both of them helped us move some of the heaviest boxes off the truck that day.   Three truck loads later (and yes, I mean medium sized U-Haul trucks), it was closing in on 8PM and several very heavy pieces of furniture remained. Justin called his friend Gordon to help and the two of them experienced what will forever be known as “the pull out couch incident.”  I’m still not sure whether this will ever be a humorous memory or not, but it certainly gets the two of them going everytime it is discussed. Needless to say, we will never be purchasing a pull-out couch again.  I’m sure you’re wondering whether we got the moving truck back on time… we did.  And then we got lost getting back to our new apartment.  Two days later we decided to tackle painting our new place.  We did one room and then gave up.  Currently, we live about 6 blocks from that first apartment – a whopping 400 square feet that forced Justin to squeeze between the bed and the “dog urine wardrobe” to get to the bathroom.

True enough, it was small and we were broke, but we made the best of it and found a way to be happy there.  We watched Sox games during the summer and could see the stadium lights from our bedroom window.  On July 4th the following year we stood on the rooftop to watch the fireworks display downtown.  We had parties, albeit a few less than in Syracuse due to the space restrictions.  We became best friends with the Ryans and attended their wedding.  For 11 months that apartment was our home – our first “real” home together.  Here are some pictures: #mce_temp_url#

6) 12/31/2006 – New Years Eve Party!  Nearly ever year of our relationship, Justin and I have thrown a partyon NYE to celebrate what we’re leaving behind and welcome the year ahead.  Okay… that’s why I like to have a party.  Justin would probably tell you that we have the NYE parties because we love to entertain guests and hosting is much more fun to us than fighting the crowds at an event or on the road.  There is probably some truth in both of our perspectives.  :)  On 12/31/2006 we had, what I consider to be, the best NYE part to date.  It was in our apartment on Winchester Street and although only about 20 people attended, we had an absolute blast!  The Ninetendo Wii had just been released and there were fierce Wii Sports competitions going on.  One of my favorite people in the universe (Ms. LaBarbera) was visiting from Raleigh and cooked the most delicious meatballs and lasagna for all of us.  We drained almost 30 bottles of wine during the 4 day celebration!  Probably one of the best aspects of this year was our trip to Chinatown for Dim Sum the morning after.  Seriously folks, I never thought dumplings could be a hangover cure… but they are.  This has now become a yearly tradition and aspect of NYE that I really look forward to !  Pictures

7) May 26, 2007 – September 21, 2007:  As many of you know,  this was the timeframe between the date that Justin proposed to me at Town Neck beach (at sunset) and when we were married at Ocean Edge (at sunset), less than 4 months later.   They say that planning a wedding together is one of the biggest stressors that a couple will ever encounter.  It was. (though our most recent move in March is a close second) We lived together from June 2003 to May 2007 and were hesitant to judge whether a marriage ceremony would change our lives.  It did.. in multiple ways.  First, after the wedding, we went through a pretty lengthy “honeymoon” phase which I didn’t think would happen. Second, we merged all of our finances which was a huge step and created a new type of responsibility to each other.  And… I just felt closer to Justin.  It was as if… I had finally found a way to unzip his being, step inside and just be as close to him as possible.  The honeymoon phase wore off… our finances have continued to evolve… but that feeling of close-ness is still there.  As it turns out, our timing was perfect.  Pictures

Multiple Dates between 2003- Present: Before I met Justin, I had only been camping twice in my life.  ”BP (before Parmelee) if you had asked me whether I would consider taking a camping trip I probably would have said “hell no!” and possibly laughed in your face.  Today, however, I look forward to our camping trips, usually down the Cape (and I miss our upstate NY trips!).  Our time camping is typically very peaceful and relaxing; we bring a lot of food to cook over the fire and spend the day dropping into our favorite places (Brewster Coffee Shop, Laurino’s Pizza,  Lemon Tree Shops, etc).  I love the tea and chunky monkey pancakes that are cooked on our little camp stove.  Now that we both finally have bikes and a rack for the car, we have started to bike during the day, which makes snuggling into a sleeping bag even more cozy at night.  I’m already looking forward to our next trip in the early spring.

9) On many dates between 06/2003 – present we have traveled to New York City for any number of occasions.  Some of my most favorite occasions include, the  trip to see Mary Poppins, the trip to visit the Guggenheim with my students (yes, the time that I sat on the artwork), the trip when we went to Serendipity for the first time for dessert, the trip with Nicki and Sarah to see the play where we sat too close to the stage, the trip when I visited Theresa and Steeve for my birthday, the trip for  my dad’s 60th birthday.  And most recently, we went to NY to see Rockettes and all other things Christmas related.  Truth be told, as much as we love Boston,  I think we’ll be living in NY again eventually.  :)

10) 12/19/2008: I’ve written about this before… the night of a huge snowstorm in Boston. Fortunately, we had plans to attend the Boston Pops, but not until the next night (another of my favorite traditions).  We both made it home from work before the weather got too bad, ate dinner and turned one of our many Christmas movies (I think it was White Christmas).  Feeling, “in the spirit” we decided to open our stockings that night instead of waiting until the following week.  It was just a perfect night, opening gifts, drinking hot chocolate and once again, experiencing the feeling of being snowed in, just the two of us….

***************************

So… that’s my list!  It was hard to narrow it down, but that gave me a few ideas for additional posts.    Here’s to a very happy and healthy 2010 to everyone – I hope you have fun ringing in the New Year!