Dave and I met 3 months before he joined the Marine Corps in 2005 and we were practically in separable had it not been for the distance apart. Our 1st year together looked like this:
We dated for 3 months before he left to boot camp for 4 and the only communication we were allowed was snail mail. One day I took a drive to MCRD while Dave was in boot camp, ask him about the time I was able to get on base. Dave then went to MCT in San Diego and I was able to see him on the weekends however; he wasn't allowed to leave the base so we sat in the back of a pick-up truck on base for hours at a time talking and laughing. Then he went to communications school in the "Stumps", aka Twenty-Nine Palms where again we looked forward to the weekends where he was limited to a 30 mile radius which was about the last Joshua tree on the left. After getting orders to Oahu, Hawaii I received my first months phone bill of $800, we talked a lot! We wrote, emailed, text, every day. I went to Hawaii every 3 day weekend there was when he wasn't deployed to Iraq. In total I believe it was 15 trips to Hawaii in 3 years. And when he was able, he came home. We were engaged over Labor Day weekend in 2009 and 3 months later we married and I moved to Hawaii to be with my husband.
On October 3, 2011 we started the greatest adventure yet, we were granted a gorgeous baby boy in which we appropriately named Grant and gave him his middle name Gary, named after both of our fathers.
