Our Love Story

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.  In honor of this hallmark holiday here's our love story:

I was finishing up my last semester in college, and got a job at this company where I thought I was getting at great opportunity (thought being the operative word, but that's not the story I am telling right now).  The first week that I started, my company was sending everyone to a conference in Nashville, Tennessee.  I was excited about my new job and this amazing opportunity to travel somewhere I'd never been before.  I had just turned 21 so I was also excited to go bar hoping in a new city and looking forward to having all kinds of fun.  In the airport while waiting to board the plane, I ordered myself a Jack and Coke and went to go sit down somewhere.  There was one table with an open seat so I walked over and asked the guy sitting there if the seat was taken and he said no.  I learned his name was Dave, and we spent the next 15-20 minutes just laughing and joking around.  The plane was ready for people to start boarding, so we packed up our stuff and started walking over to the gate, and his friend Mike joined up with us.  Mike was nothing shy of gorgeous, extremely cocky, but gorgeous.  We ended up sitting next to each other on the plane just talking about life, laughing and joking around, comparing notes on the books we had brought to read on the flight and sharing a few drinks.  Once we landed we checked into our rooms and the three of us met up again and hit the town.  We went to the first bar and Mike ordered a gin and tonic, and Dave and I gave him endless flack about ordering such a girly drink, as we were both Jack fans, so he quickly manned up and got on our boat.

We spent the night walking from bar to bar in the freezing cold of a Nashville December, but none of us seemed to notice the cold with our Jack and Coke coats on.  Mike made fun of me at every bar as he thought it was hilarious that I kept dancing like I was at punk concert even though we were listening to country music.  The night wrapped up and we walked back to our hotel, where we met up with a  bunch of other coworkers and continued to laugh and joke around for a few more hours.  Needless to say, the next morning at 8am when the actual conference meetings began, I was a little less than bright and cheery.  But I soldiered on and made it through the almost 8 hour long conference, the whole time checking behind me to see what Mike was up to.  We would catch eyes and he'd wink which would make me smile.  That night there was a huge awards reception and we ended up sitting together along with Dave and several other of our coworkers, including my soon to be roommate Nichole.  We flirted and joked around and had a great night.  The next day on our flight back I made sure to sit with other people because I figured we would leave our flirtatious weekend in Nashville.  The next Monday when we went back to work, the flirting continued, making eyes across the room, making excuses to find a way to be near each other and we started making plans to get drinks with coworkers every few nights after work.  This turned into talking on the phone, which I am not really the biggest phone person, but we did anyway.  Talking on the phone turned into meeting up for breakfast before work, which turned into hanging out outside of work.  I continued to tell myself that this couldn't go anywhere because he had a 6 year old and was extremely cocky, funny as hell, but cocky.  About a 6 weeks in or so, after our weekly Tuesday night dates became a routine, I realized I was interested in trying out a little more, so I jokingly asked him if I could be more than his Tuesday night girl (a line for which I don't think I will ever hear the end of because not only did he laugh out loud when I asked, he still laughs about it to this day).  This simple questions turned into us being effectively inseparable.  We spent most of our free time together, getting to know each other even more and falling in love.  About 4 months in to being pretty serious, I finally met Mike's daughter (and his baby mama, and his entire family all in one shot).  Things went well, and things got more and more serious and we started talking about next steps.  A few weeks after we passed our 1 year mark, we started seriously talking about getting married.  On Valentine's day, we went on a really long bike ride (yes the same ride where our bikes got stolen off the back of my car when we got home, and yes we still mourn the passing of our beloved bikes).  When we got to the spot where we always stopped on our long rides, Mike proposed.  I would have never guessed that I would marry the handsome guy I met on a plane to Nashville.

About a month later, while applying for our marriage license, we decided to screw all the plans we were making and just get married at the court house (quick back story on that one is that I really wanted to just elope, but he really felt like we should have a more traditional wedding, in the end I won).  We called our parents and told them our plans, and gave them the time and place in case they wanted to be there (more of a be there or be square situation).  And we tied the knot.  Best decision we ever made.    So here we are two years later, with out happy baby and our happy little love story.  But I think the funniest thing about our whole story is that last night when we were talking about Valentine's days past, we weren't reminiscing about what a great story we have, we were just sad about our bikes, gotta have priorities, right?