Those of you who are married, don't you ever have days where you thing "Gosh I love my husband!!" I do. Days when he agrees that my crappy relationship with my mother is not 100% my fault... days when I come home and he's made cookies, and not just any cookies but the ones that I like rather than his favourite ones. Or days like yesterday when he came to my work get together (because it was my last day and now I'm on Maternity Leave, YAY!) and all I could think is "Dude, you are so hot and you smell really good too!!"

I don't post about Major Man very often because he's a private guy, he doesn't like people thinking they KNOW him... but I think I can get away with saying that I loved him from the very first day I met him... even if it took 10 years to land him and a couple of times I thought I might as well forget about him... I knew he was The One.

I will tell the story again for those who haven't heard.

In 1996 I was young and working in Austria, training horses. He was older and in the US Army and stationed in Germany. We met on Memorial Day Weekend in Italy.

If I've ever chastised myself for being a total loser, the introduction redeems me. Being a loser can work, too. I was in the water of the Adriatic Sea, thinking about how much this totally rocked, being in Italy with nothing to do for three days and here I was with my hair pinned up on my head and sweet new sunglasses and I thought I was looking HOT, baby! I heard voices several yards away... not just speaking English, but American.

Let me pause to say, I fight for the underdog and when you're in Europe and it's a freeforall on bashing Americans, I became very pro-American.

I turn and holy hubba hubba... hot army guys.

My Hot Army Guy radar was turned up from a young age, let me tell you. Corny? Oh yes. Steroetypical? Yeppers. But helloooo... short hair cuts, no facial hair, strong and muscular?

So I walk over, through the water, which of course is the best way to meet a guy... when the water is covering your ample hips.... and say "Hey! Hi! My name is Heather! I'm from Canada!" Yeah. Dumbest opening lines ever, but whatever...

There were three of them, we chat, find out what hotel they are staying in and mention that my girlfriend and I need to find a hotel room. Huh.. their hotel happens to have room. Well ok then!

Major Man (who was Captain Man then..) and I hit it off right away. Inseparable for our three days together.

I'd never met anyone like him. Not only was he chivalrous and funny, he was attentive to me... ME. He would walk me home from dinner (ok, we had drunk far too much and by 'walking me home' I mean he held me up so we could actually walk to the hotel) and walk on the beach together, he spent more time with me than he did with the guys I think.

Anyways. The time came for us to head back to our respective countries and of COURSE we were going to see each other again...

We didn't. Not for over 8 years.

Life intervened and I returned to Canada and he went back to the states... we lost touch. But, thank you to the US Army who keeps all it's officer's postings as public record and the power of Google. I stalked tracked him down.

We met again in 2004. After dating long distance for a year, we married in 2005.

It took him a while to come around to my way of thinking. Let's just say that.