11 years...

Last week, Jerome and I celebrated the 11th anniversary of our first date. We had our usual dinner at Flemings in Newport Beach, and during dinner we were reminiscing over our 11 fun, and sometimes arduous years, together. Many things have changed from our first date back in 1999 till now. Family dynamics have grown and shifted, careers have evolved, friendships have came and gone, reality TV has grown from more than just the Real World on MTV, and technology has become the beast that drives our communication. One thing we laughed about was how much the style of cell phones has changed since the year we got together. Rather than post a montage of pictures of us throughout the years, I thought it would be more exciting to take a walk down cell phone memory lane. Wow, time has certainly changed!

EXHIBIT #1: The "Zack Morris" Phone

When we first started dating, Jerome was the proud owner of a phone just like this. It was too big to be fashionably carried in his pocket, so instead it was kept in his glove box

for emergency calls only. We both also carried pagers around, in case anyone "911"'d us to call them. Even then with our awesome accessories, we knew it was definitely 143 at first sight!

EXHIBIT #2: The Nokia 3310

One of our first big commitments together was sharing a cell phone plan, complete with these trendy Nokia phones. They were more compact than the Zack Morris model, customized ring tones and even had face plates that you could change the color of! I remember having a bright orange one

(that was my favorite color at the time).

EXHIBIT #3: The Motorola Flip Phone

Sometime around the year we got married, Jerome and I moved from our plan at Cingular to new phones with at&t. Part of the plan switch included an "upgrade" to these cool flip phones. How exciting to have such a compact phone that fit in your pocket and be able to see who

was calling from the outside screen!

EXHIBIT 4: The Motorola RAZR

Now we had finally made it to cool phones! They were ultra slim and had tons of modern upgrades like texting and Internet access. Wow!

EXHIBIT #5: The Blackberry Curve

Jerome and I officially entered the world of smart phones with these babies. We became addicted to BBM'ing friends and perusing the Internet from the palm of our hands. Our technological lives had changed for ever, and I proclaimed my love for my precious Crackberry. I never wanted to give this phone up!

EXHIBIT #6: The Apple iPhone

I had vowed to never give up my Blackberry, but Jerome soon convinced me that these were the way to go, so we said so long to our BB's and hello to new iPhones. Now you can find us on these mini-computers making calls, texting, Facebooking, playing Angry Birds, battling on Words with Friends, and a host of other mindless activities. Just about anything else you want to do, trust me when I tell you, there's an app for that!

I look forward to revisiting this post in another 11 years, and comparing the evolving technology again. Until then, so long, and happy texting!