The next significant "win" in my life, is when I "won" the heart of the man who is now my husband.

I met Robert at college on September 8, 1990. About 4 to 6 weeks later, we started dating. The church that is affiliated with the college we attended has a Spanish ministry, in which he was involved. On our first date, he took me to a Spanish church dinner. It was fascinating, and I ate things I'd never eaten before! Don't ask - you don't want to know!! I went to his parents' house for Thanksgiving and Christmas that year. On February 19, 1991, my 20th birthday, he took me to dinner and proposed! Obviously, I said yes. We were married August 9, 1991 and have been enjoying each other ever since. We spent our honeymoon in Florida - much of it at Disney World.

The next was on Saturday, November 1, 1997. Our local Wal-Marts were having a Cookie Bake-Off. I was encouraged to enter by one of my co-workers, and so I figured, "Why not?" We had three Wal-Marts there, and I was going to take my entry to the Supercenter, but lost the entry form I'd picked up there. So I went to the one nearest me, and they asked me to go ahead and enter at that store, because they only had a few entries. I agreed, filled out the entry form, and went home to prepare. On Thursday, I mixed up the dough, made a couple dozen, and put away some of the dough so I could bake some fresh on Saturday. On Friday, since it was Halloween, we had "goodie day" at work, so I took some of my cookies. I got several compliments, and was feeling pretty good about the contest Saturday. So, I got up Saturday, baked the cookies, packaged them up neatly in a pie tin (it was the only "disposable" container I had with a cover - I didn't know if I was going to get it back or not), and took them to Wal-Mart.

The judging was scheduled to begin at 2:00pm, and I got there about 1:45. I was the first one there, and they were pleased to see me. They directed me to the table that was set up for the cookies, and I put them there, and went wandering around the store until time to begin. I took Rachel with me, and we looked at clothes and videos and jewelry together. Then, at 1:55pm, we went back to the front of the store. None of the other entries had showed up yet! The manager said we needed to wait until 2:10, just in case someone was coming but would be late. So we waited. And waited. And no one else showed up! At 2:15, they got out the camera and told the judges (of which there were supposed to be three, but the third judge didn't show up either) to "pretend" to taste the cookies to make it "look good"... well, the judges went ahead and tasted, and were pleased. They let one of the stockboys taste, and he wanted to take the rest! (There were a dozen.) So I got a T-shirt that says "Champion Baker" across the front, and a Black & Decker Mini-Chopper for winning first prize. And my recipe (which I am now pleased to be able to call "Award-winning"!) is supposed to be in a Children's Miracle Network cookbook. It was all very thrilling. =)