How We Met
It was only 11 days into my freshman year of college (September 11, 2013), I was still nervous trying to find out where I fit in, staying oddly attached to the hip of a friend I had only met 10 days earlier (Amanda). She brought me downstairs to “do homework” in the lounge of the Moore dorms at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and there I recognized someone from my small hometown that I hardly knew before. Her name was Niki and she was sitting on the rough dusty couches that had been there for who knows how long. Niki introduced me to some of the people sitting with her who she had only met a few days earlier in her own desperate attempt to find friends. I cant even tell you who else was sitting down there at those couches, because once she introduced me to Kyle I was captivated. We continued to “do homework” AKA talk/facebook, for a couple hours. I remember trying to be extra funny hoping I could make him laugh so I could see his handsome smile once again. We decided to all go watch a scary movie together in one of the dorms many lounges. Kyle intentionally sat next to me. Everyone has that friend in the group that screams bloody-murder during scary movies in our case her name is (Talisha). Well Talisha’s screaming happened to be a great ice breaker because we sat there and giggled at her screaming both in our own awkwardly nervous way. Once the movie was over Talisha had the guts to ask him for his number.. I thought he was history.. Well… I thought about him pretty much non stop for the next few days and finally convinced Talisha to give me his number, and from there on a number of silly, sweet, funny and amazing dates insued.
how they asked
Fast forward to September of 2015, Kyle and I are living with my parents now in Wasilla, AK and continuing to go to school through the University of Alaska Anchorage. Amanda had moved back to California. All of our other friends still live in Fairbanks, so Kyle suggests we take the 6 hour beautiful drive up to say hello to everyone since it had been about one year since we had seen them. That sounded like fun to me! We got the time off from work and one thing led to another and we were on our way to Fairbanks on September 10th, 2015. We got there very late in the evening so we ended up staying the night on the living room floor of our friends dorm room. The next morning I woke up and Kyle was oddly already awake (usually I am the early bird and he is the night owl). Kyle insisted that I go shower, hoping I didn’t stink I went to the small dorm bathroom and started getting ready for the day. Kyle came in about 5 minutes into my shower telling me to hurry up, and then he proceeded to take my cell phone. I got dressed very quickly knowing my cell phone was in jeopardy. I began to go back down the stairs to the living room, when I turn the corner and Amanda is most definitely not in California where she had told me she was when we talked the night before, she was standing right there in Fairbanks, AK. There was a lot of hugging and surprise. She told me that she had come up to surprise me cause we hadn’t seen each other for so long. She said she was going to kidnap me for the day and have a girls day with me, and she didn’t care what Kyle had to say about it.
We go over to our other friends dorm and we finish getting made up, we get ready to head out the door and I cant find my wallet. Amanda just tells me not to worry about my wallet. Something seemed fishy, but she just reassured me that she was treating me to a girls day. First thing we did was go and get our nails done, after that we went to my favorite sushi restaurant in Fairbanks. While sushi was digesting she told me everyone was going to go out to dinner, so we had better stop and buy me a cute dress or something to wear. I was hesitant but who in their right mind would say no to shopping?! Remember through out all this I had no phone and no wallet and hadn’t seen Kyle since he hijacked my phone. We went back to the dorms and began getting ready for our dinner. After we were all made up I was told we had to walk over to the Moore dorms (sound familiar?) to meet one of our friends who was coming with us. Once over there, I turned the corner to walk in the building and one of our friends who lived in Wasilla( Rachael) was indeed not in Wasilla, as she was standing there with a bouquet of flowers and a card. I read the card and immediately recognized the handwriting, It was my very best friend, Kyle’s, handwriting. The card said a lot, but ill leave out all the gushy stuff for the sake of the length of this story. Basically the card said “welcome back to the place where we met on this day 2 years ago, this is stop #1 and remember this day is for you”. Rachael then directed me to her car and once we got settled she began playing a playlist of songs that clearly had been put together by Kyle. Our next stop was the movie theater in Fairbanks, where Kyle and I had our first group date. When we pulled up to the movie theater another one of our friends was standing there with another bouquet of flowers and another card. The card had more extremely cute gushy stuff, and we continued on to our next stop which was a restaurant called Bamboo Panda where Kyle and I had very class-fully eaten our dinner out of styrofoam containers ( he swears up and down that his roommate said it was a classy place). When we got there another one of our friends was there with yet another bouquet and another card. This went on as we went to another one of our date locations Pioneer Park, also where we had our first apartment, and the gas station parking lot/lookout where he had given me a promise ring. At each of those places we had a friend with a card and more flowers. So imagine this scene, tons of flowers and cards with the cutest songs playing and tears streaming from my face as I sit there and wonder “could this be it?” Also throughout all these my friends in the car were go-pro videoing everything and taking pictures.
Our last stop was the university’s botanical gardens, when we got the the parking lot all of my friends whom I had seen at the various places were now all in the same place and encouraging me to walk down this trail while they insist they stay behind and photograph. As I walked for what seemed like an hour I hear music coming, not just any music but Lady Antebellum’s -Cant Take My Eyes Off You, which was our song. As I continue to walk forward I see the most handsome man standing in a gazebo, with assorted rose petals all over the ground, with a single rose in his hand. I hugged him and smelled the rose (typical). He begins telling me how lucky he is to have me and then he tells me he talked to both my parents, he talked to my twin little brothers (12 years old) and then he brings his phone out and shows me a message from my older brother who was deployed in Cuba at the time with the navy. The message was my brothers blessing to Kyle to ask me to be his wife. As soon as he showed me the message I really lost it. Kyle got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said yes of course! and he put the most beautiful ring on my finger. Meanwhile all our friends where getting footage of all of the events. We took many pictures and cleaned up the flower petals and then of course I had to spread the news! The rest of the night was a lot of fun and a lot of memories were made! I am the luckiest girl in the world :)
