Gazpacho

Gratitude Journal - My Hubby

11/2/11 (fb) - I am thankful for Justin & for all that he does for our family! He is such a wonderful daddy, & an amazing husband! I'm so lucky to have him for eternity!!!

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1/15/13 - Once upon a time, back when I was in high school, my Dad & I would have Daddy/Daughter counsel dates from time to time. Sometimes we would just chat at home, & sometimes we would go out for ice cream or something else. During one of our stay-at-home chats when we were talking about boys, I distinctly remember him telling me that the name of my future husband would be Gazpacho.

Yep...
Cold tomato-vegetable soup.

I, being a teenage girl at the time laughed off the idea that I would ever meet anyone with the name of Gazpacho or anyone that would even want to go by the nickname of Gazpacho for the sake of marrying me. Besides, I had other plans. I had my silly teenage infatuations & had no intentions of marrying young anyway. (When I was still in elementary school I had once said that I wasn't going to start dating until I was 30. That was caught on tape & it makes me laugh every time I think about it since here I am in my mid-20's & I'm married with 2 kids.) I didn't even like Gazpacho, so I wouldn't be attracted to anyone named Gazpacho. But things changed. I grew up. I went to college & met the love of my life.

Don't be fooled by that last statement though, I didn't meet him at college. I met him online.

But I didn't meet him on an online dating service. We met on MySpace. He was bored & flipping through random profiles one day when he saw this pic of me drinking this energy drink called Bawls...

He sent me a message on Valentine's Day 2006 (which I have framed in our hallway) asking where I found them (since my profile said that we were both in Tucson & he hadn't seen them since he had lived in the midwest). I explained to him that I was going to college at BYU-Idaho & that I found them at one of the gas stations out there. From that first message he sent I had no idea that we would get married or that our friendship would really go anywhere. After all, it was a long distance relationship, we had never met, & he wasn't my ideal husband either since I wanted to be married in the temple and he wasn't a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That didn't stop me from dating him because I was truly in love with him; but somewhere deep, down inside I knew that I wouldn't feel quite right about marrying him knowing that we wouldn't be able to be sealed for time & all eternity in the temple and that I wouldn't have a priesthood holder in the home. We continued talking, eventually met, fell in love, I invited him to church, he started taking discussions with the missionaries and got baptized, & the rest is history! I'm really grateful that he took the time to pray about his decision to join the church and that he gained his own testimony instead of just getting baptized for me. He actually helped me strengthen my testimony and grow closer to our Heavenly Father through his example, & we've been helping each other do that ever since. Once we were engaged, I told him about Gazpacho & I guess he was in love with me enough to take upon him the nickname.

One of the best days of my life was September 7th, 2007.
That was the day we were sealed in the San Diego temple for time & all eternity.
I simply cannot express the joy I felt that day when I saw him across the altar knowing that we would be together forever!

I have yet to try gazpacho (the soup), but I think my Dad was right in a sense.
You see, I used to be an extremely picky eater & never thought I would like gazpacho. I'm still not much of a soup person so I like to think that my hubby is more like this Raspberry Kiwi Gazpacho dessert (;
In all seriousness though, I married someone that I never thought I would marry & am growing to love him more and more every day! He's better than I ever imagined my hubby would be!
I'm so grateful that he sent me that MySpace message almost seven years ago, because whether he realized it at the time or not, he has made a huge impact on my life and I definitely would not be the person I am today without him. I love him with all my heart & feel extremely blessed to be his eternal companion.

xoxo