Our first vacation...

...together.

Wow. Its quite rememberable to me.
It was April 2006. And it wasn't a long one. It was more of a tester vacation.
We went over to Cape Coral for the weekend.
Roger needed to test for his AFAA group instructor certification and I came along for the ride.
We got a mom & pop hotel. And it was just us. Alone.

But the big deal.
At least for me.
In the car. Together. For 3 whole hours. Yes, three!
No escape.
No running to the other room.

So an hour down & two hours to go.
Roger wants to talk the entire time.
I should have known.
He would call me on his way to & from Miami to talk for 4 hours.
Why did I expect peace & quiet now.
And most of our fights in those first few months were on those phone calls.
So what do I get: "What are you thinking about?"

Ok.
So maybe we should play some music.
Well Roger had got me for that Christmas a connector to play my iPod in the car.
Perfect.
We both like music. We both like lots of music.
I like to put the iPod on shuffle.
I like various, various types of music.
I had Alison Krauss, Dave Matthews Band, Beattles, Bonnie Rait, Elvis, Brittney Spears (only 1 song though), Toto, Snow Patrol, Lion King, Extreme, Cure, Ace of Base, and tons of other random selections.

Roger, although likes various types of music as well, doesn't like the shuffle function.
Hmm...
He says "I want to listen to Hip/Hop."
"Ok"
Black Eyed Peas start playing.
"That's not hip/hop, that's pop."
"Well, I classified it as hip/hop"
"You classified it wrong and I don't want to listen to shuffle"
"I like shuffle. It mixes things up."
"Find something else Hip/Hop"
I find something else.
Still not "hip/hop" per Mr. Knows-how-to-properly-classify-music.
"Fine, you don't get to listen to my iPod"
I yank the connector out and go back to silence.

"Why aren't you talking to me" says Mr. Music-Extraordinaire
"I'm fine"
"Girl fine or real fine"
[Sidenote: All ladies know about this type of classification. There is "girl fine" where you just say it in hopes that the guy knows you aren't really fine so he is suppose to respond in a certain way to make it better. Then there is "real fine" which is what everyone else uses in normal cases.]
"Girl fine"
Now, there is no where for me to go. I am stuck "discussing" this with Roger.
Also, I'm also an internal processor. I don't want to "discuss" things right away. So... our solution - I get 5 miles to "think" about things then we will continue our "discussion."
Obviously, we worked it out.

Then... this is the part of the story my friend Siobhan just thinks is hilarious.
At this point in our relationship, we had known each other for seven months.
He had just recently been upgraded to boyfriend (before that he was just "boy I'm dating").
And I knew I loved him. But I hadn't told him that yet.
And I didn't want to say it until it was about to explode out of me.
I also did not want him to say it back to me just to respond.
Here's the scene:
We have checked into the hotel. We are all settled in. We are in the bed and about to go to sleep.
I sit up in bed.
I cover his mouth with my hand.
"Ok. I'm about to tell you something but you can't say anything back."
He nods.
"I love you"
I keep my hand there for a minute.
"Ok. You can talk now but you can't respond to what I just said."
Man, Roger was a very patient man.

The "vacation" ended up being a good one.
We got to relax a lot. We spend a lot of time just chilling out. Sitting out on our little patio. Roger studying while I read a book.
And I loved him.