How We Met
Mike and I met my senior year of high school (his first year of college). We hung out a few times and “dated” but being so young, we didn’t really know what we were doing. Mike says I dumped him because I wanted to be single in college but I just remember standing outside of his dorm room saying good bye and being naive about it. About 4 years later, our paths crossed on social media and we began talking. I remember Mike tweeting me, telling me to text him if he still had my number from a few years ago. I was moving out of my sorority house at the time, so I didn’t respond to him right away, and he replied with “or not….”. I felt so bad, I immediately text him when I read that and explained to him I was in the middle of moving. Our first date/time meeting again was at High Desert, a local brewery. We were both so nervous but the second we locked eyes, everything just clicked. After that, we went to a park and talked for hours- I didn’t want to leave his space that night. On the fourth of July of 2013, he invited me to his parents’ house. He told me that no girl has ever been so comfortable with his family, nor had he ever seen his family approve of a girl like they did with me. He is a family oriented man, so that was important to him. That night, he asked me to be his girlfriend during the firework show, under the streetlight. (his mom took this picture on her own!)
how they asked
I was having a terrible day at school (I’m a first grade teacher) and was going to the office during my lunch break when I ran into Mike. He had never been to my school before, so I was completely surprised to see him there. There he was, standing with a smile on his face and a parchment rolled up, tied with a red ribbon and two red roses. Immediately, I started crying because all I needed was to see his face to get through the rest of the work day. I didn’t even realize what he was holding, but he told me to take the parchment back to my classroom and read it after school. I gave him a huge hug and he held me tightly. Later on, I read the parchment and the first sentence said, “First things first…let me start off by saying thank you for being all that you are”. It went on about how much he cherishes me and our relationship. Then he wrote, “Being confined to our little 1 bedroom apartment for 2 years combined with your extreme curiosity, you must understand how difficult it is to surprise you, but today, I have you beat. Dig deep into your memory…back 13 months ago, to Valentine’s Day 2015. You may have a much better memory than most, but I’m not sure you remember it quite like I do…with the bouquet of flowers and the assorted custom made tea bags on the counter, you gave me an amazing hug and proceeded to ask me several questions on how I arrived at such a thoughtful gesture. I told you that I had a great idea for something else to give you, but I had thought about it much too late, and it ultimately led me to the tea messages. Over time, I assumed you had forgotten about the whole thing…but I never did. Here we are 13 months later, and you never did get what I originally intended on giving you…but after all this time, today is the day”. At the end of his letter, he told me some rules to follow such as, don’t ask questions, leave all of your stuff in your car, turn off your phone and leave it in the car, and text him when I get home. When I got home, he greeted me outside and seemed so calm, so I didn’t know what to expect. We walked in together and he re-arranged our whole living room. The floor was covered with rose petals, there were bouquets of roses and pictures of us, as well as hand made gifts he had given me in the past. In the background, there was a string quartet pandora station playing. Mike set up a little table with a glass of wine and chocolate covered fruit (my favorite). At this point, I thought that the set up was the gift he talked about in the parchment, not thinking he was going to propose. He told me to take some treats and my wine to the little couch he had set up and there in the middle, were two books called “Fall in Love Every Day”. One book was a hard cover, and the other was a paperback. Mike told me he wrote and published these two books for me. Stunned and crying I told him, “WHAT?! What do you mean??”. Now, I was beginning to realize what might just happen next. He then told me to relax while he reads the story to me. Mike told me that every day for the last year, he wrote a journal entry of what I did that day that made him fall in love with me. The last sentence of every single entry said “I can’t wait to see how I fall in love with you tomorrow”. He read me a few of his favorite passages and the last passage had March 4, 2016. He told me, “as the last chapter of this book ends, another one begins. As if my heartbeat weren’t fast enough already, it feels as if it will jump out of my chest, when I start to move to my knee the look on your face is exactly the one I had dreamed about for so long”. I was crying so hard and it felt like it went by so fast! Of course I said yes for what felt like a million times. After he proposed, he told me that he secretly recorded the whole thing!! We talked about his planning process and looked through the book (it’s about 400 pages). After about an hour of doing that, we called our family members and friends to tell them the exciting news. He cooked us dinner and we drank beer at home from the local brewery, where we were reunited in 2013.
