April 13, 2021

Four Year Anniversary of our First Date

Four years ago I flew to St. George from Arizona and met Mitzi for the first time.

Our first date.

She taught school that morning then had the rest of the day off.

I texted from the airport when I got in the rental car, "I'll be there in approx 12 minutes." What a nerd.

When she opened the door there she was in person. Beautiful just like the pictures. Big welcoming smile.

I had a bright green shirt on. She was surprised I would wear something so loud when I had seemed so quiet.

We were both nervous. We headed over to Lin's grocery store. We stood there looking at the sandwiches unsure what to get. Then we got to the register and I was so nervous I couldn't remember the PIN number to my debit card.

As we walked back to the car with our groceries we acknowledged to each other how nervous we felt. That reduced the nervousness!

We had a great day. We ended up spending 10 hours together. Eating a picnic at a park, touring the Jacob Hamlin home, taking a walk, talking at a park.

We had planned to attend a widow/widower dinner with the St George group. But once it was near dinner time we decided to go to Durango's and have our own meal together.

I told Mitzi the whole story of how Durango's came to be. Being one of the founders I definitely had the inside scoop :)

Then we sat in the car in the parking lot for 3 hours and talked until about 10p.

What I didn't know is that Sydney was at the house very very concerned that her mom's cell phone was located in the parking lot at Durango's for 3 hours that night. She was sure I had kidnapped and killed her mom!

It was a wonderful day. A great day.

As we got to Mitzi's house I said before we got out of the car, "Just so you know, I'm not going to kiss you." She said, "That's good!" We laugh about it now.

She didn't think she'd ever see me again. She saw a very sad widower struggling to put life back together who would go back to Arizona and that would be it.

What I saw was a beautiful widow who was unpretentious, thoughtful, intelligent, and kind. And I wanted to get to know her better.

Our first date – SUCCESS!

To celebrate our four year anniversary we went out to Edward's Fine Food in Rosemary Beach, just a few minutes from our new house in Florida. It was a beautiful place.

We get seated at Edward's.