willing to swim through shark infested waters.

growing up in the charles household, you were likely to hear several different talk shows being played on our parents' radios. there was the boisterous rush limbaugh show, hosted by a man who, to my young ears, seemed to be perpetually angry about everything, or if it was a saturday, surely we would have to listen to car talk, a very long hour of two men guffawing at each other's jokes. weekday afternoons, i can remember watching my mom mop the kitchen floor while listening to the dr. laura schlessinger show. people would call in and ask dr. laura for advice about various situations, usually involving love and family troubles. dr. laura shocked me with her blunt answers, usually not the answers the caller was looking to hear. i never quite knew what to think about her talk show.

my mom was a huge dr. laura fan. she also read her book, the proper care and feeding of husbands. i thumbed through the book one day, noticed a chapter devoted to sex, and sneakily read that chapter. then felt guilty for reading it. funny the things you remember. but there was one piece of dr. laura advice that my mom told me about that always stuck with me. 

a man should be willing to swim through shark infested waters to bring you a glass of lemonade. 

when my mom first told me this, i thought about all the different guys i was interested in, pictured myself on a lawn chair on some deserted island, and the guy swimming, one handed of course, because he was holding that lemonade up high so as not to spill, and punching sharks out of the way. and then thought, who on earth would ever be willing to do something like that for me?

of course, as the years went by, i began to realize what that phrase really meant, and from time to time, would think about it and consider the guy-of-the-week, asking myself if this guy was a swimming through shark infested waters kind of guy. usually, not the case. 

then, along came travis bodtcher. 

august, 2008. 

i had been dating a guy all summer. nice guy, actually a guy who was divorced and had a kid, but he also had some temper issues i wasn't willing to deal with. plus i was moving to hawaii for school and not looking for anything serious. enter, travis bodtcher. he asked me out, and as i was upset with this other guy at the time, i thought, eh, why not. we went out on a few dates, travis asking me each time, "are you sure you want to move to hawaii?" i liked him and all, but yeah, i was pretty sure i wanted to move to an island paradise and have adventures. 

so we had a couple weeks of going on dates and talking non stop on the phone, and yes, a bit  quite a lot of kissing. the night before my flight to hawaii, i told travis i had to spent the evening packing, because naturally, i hadn't even started to pack for the next year of my life. he offered to come help, and by help, he meant literally folding up my clothes for me and placing them in the suitcase. i was already impressed, but then came the swimming through shark infested waters bit. 

in the haze of packing, pulling things out from the closet and under the bed and general mess making of my bedroom, an enormous spider found its way into my covers. upon this discovery, i ran from the room, screaming for someone to kill the beast!!! i was later told that the spider scuttled back under the bed and my mom said to travis, "oh, it's gone. we'll never find it. just tell her we killed it." travis looked at my mom and said, "i can't lie to her. i have to kill it." 

and he hunted the spider down, no small feat considering the mess under my bed, and killed it. 

can i get a swoon, anyone? 

so after that stunt almost five years ago, i shouldn't still be in awe of all the other selfless, sweet things travis does for me. 

like a month ago, i realized i hadn't called the pharmacy to refill one of my nausea prescriptions and that they were going to close in 30 minutes. i had just taken my last pill with dinner and was having a meltdown about not having one for the morning. travis drove to the pharmacy and was informed they were out of those pills and had to transfer the prescription to a different location. the day before, he had hurt his foot playing basketball, hurt like he was afraid it was broken and it was completely swollen and puffy. he had been laying on the couch with me all day trying not to strain it even more. but after being told he had twelve minutes to get to that other pharmacy before it closed, he sprinted to the car, employed his best stunt man driving, and then sprinted to the pharmacy to get the prescription for me. hurt foot and all. 

or like the time several months ago, after my fainting incident with the paramedics. i was terrified to go home and be alone. this was about the time i moved my things to my parents and began living with them while travis was at the station, and then even when he was off, i refused to go back home. one morning, he was trying to get me to drive home with him and i raised my voice to him, saying he needed to be more understanding of where i was coming from, that he wasn't looking at it from my point of view. then he left and i spent the day thinking how rude he was and basically being angry. little did i know, he was home doing laundry, cleaning the house, and setting up the christmas tree so i wouldn't feel so overwhelmed to go home. leaving the christmas lights on and the blinds open so that when you drove up to the house, you would see twinkling from the street. 

swimming through shark infested waters to bring me a lemonade, i tell you. 

but seriously, if you want to test you and your partner's relationship, come down with a debilitating illness and see what happens. 

remove all traces of physical intimacy, and not only sex, which is a wonderful tool for showing love, aiding forgiveness, and enjoying each other, but hugging, kissing, cuddling, and even sharing a bed. 

spend six months of your life feeling the worst you have physically felt, being in a terrible crying mood every day, unable to care for yourself, leaving the other person completely responsible for all financial needs and all physical needs of the sick partner, who won't be in a very nice state of mind to appreciate the other's efforts. 

hopefully, you will come out of this nightmare and find, like us, that we loved, trusted, and appreciated each other all the more for it. 

we had a wonderful valentine's day, just enjoying spending time together in a way that the hyperemesis hadn't allowed for so long. normal things like going out for dinner and hanging out in your own house alone together.  

i'm crazy about this man.

an unlikely love story, part 1: the setup

this is the story of how i met my husband, travis, and how we came to love each other. be prepared for Harlequin, steamy, romance and/or Mormon virgin lovers. i guess you'll just have to see for yourself...
this story probably really begins in 2004, the year i started high school at Murray High. i can still remember that first day of school, wearing my new red top that showed off my summer tan lines. i had spent an hour straightening my hair that morning. i had high hopes for high school to be different from middle school, hoped this might be the year i made friends and stepped out of my loner/shyness habits.

the new high school seemed enormous. three floors, brand spankin' new. the 12th graders seemed so old and i remembering feeling intimidated by gorgeous girls in short shorts, with deep tans and thick makeup, eyeliner and cheek bronzer that looked so effortless.
one such girl was the "TA" for my third period Biology class. she flirted with the teacher, who flirted right back, and all the boys in the class stared. this was the class where i would meet travis.

the first day of high school, seven years ago, and i can still remember the first time i saw those big blue eyes. of course, i had no idea then that someday i would marry him. i had a little baby crush on travis the first month of school, but he was painfully shy, so i moved on. i can remember doing labs, trying my darndest to get his attention. i called him "travis blue eyes," when talking about him to my friends, because i didn't know his last name yet.

we never dated and we weren't really part of the same group of friends, although we were in the same group for senior ball. i actually have a picture of us sitting side by side in that hummer limo, each with our dates, completely oblivious to the fact that one day we would be a couple.
the only thing i really knew about travis in high school was that he had an old '68 mustang. he was fiercely proud of it and could always be found working in the autoshop.

high school mercifully passed and i hardly ever thought about travis bodtcher, the skinny, shy boy from biology class. i was dating alex hansen, which is a story all by itself, and didn't really think about anyone else. until one day, i was home from my first year of college at SUU, and i was working out at the Murray Rec Center. i was lifting weights in front of the mirror and noticed the Murray firemen were there working out, too. and travis was there with them. for the first time since i'd known him, travis walked over to me and started up a conversation. we talked about my college and his firefighting ambitions as a cadet, and i remembered thinking, he's cute, but i'm already dating a great guy. i did think about him from time to time during the following year, though.

we didn't speak again until the summer of 2008. i was about to move to hawaii for school. i was sort of dating a guy, mostly because my best friend was dating his best friend, and i was determined to break any ties i had before moving. alex hansen was on his mission and i was ready to break free and have an adventure.

it was a friday night, and my friend morgan and i had spent the evening planning my upcoming birthday party. all that planning had worked up our appetites, and we decided to make a McDonald's run. it had been almost a year since i'd eaten there, because i was trying to eat healthier. we stood in line and when it was our turn to order, i noticed travis bodtcher in the drive through. i waved at him and we started talking, or rather, yelling to each other through the kitchen. the line was building behind me and cars were honking for him to move, so he called, "i'll just come in there!" i turned to morgan and said, "why is he coming in here?" because we weren't ever really great friends.

travis came in and was wearing a work uniform of some kind. (he later told me that his uniform gave him the courage to come talk to me.) we told him about my birthday party and invited him to come. i really didn't think he would actually come, but he promised to stop by.

the day of my birthday party came and i wondered if travis bodtcher would actually show up. i had my hair cut and colored and paid extra attention to my outfit. the manboy i was dating threw a fit and left the party early, just in time for travis and his cousin to show up at my door. long story short, i somehow ended up on his lap and he asked me out. on a real date. not just a "oh hey let's hang out" but a real date where he would pick me up at seven.

i was pretty intrigued.