How We Met
Junior and I met in high school after a year of what Junior would name “stalking”, but what I would call strategic planning. He was a freshmen in high school on the football team and I, a sophomore on the water polo and swim team. We both took quite few honors and AP classes which meant almost all of our classes were in the same vicinity. We crossed paths day after day and me, being the boy-crazy teen that I was just couldn’t get over the beautiful smile this 6’1 dark, tan, and handsome high school. Sadly, it wasn’t just me that noticed this boys cuteness as he had another girlfriend at the time (and probably 2 ahead of me on the waiting list). Too bad, I knew what I wanted and wasn’t afraid to ask for it ;) I told all of my friends, “just wait… he’ll be my boyfriend one day.” I played the long game because damn.. him and that girl were NOT breaking up! They were still together after a whole summer and even into the first semester of my junior year (his sophomore year), but finally, FINALLY, at the homecoming dance Junior was alone AKA didn’t have that girl hanging on his neck.. You may be agreeing with Junior now that I was indeed stalking him, but it was strategic, ok?! Anyways, Junior was standing around with 2 of my guy friends that I happened to know very well so I used this as my in… I walked up and made conversation with my two friends and then batted my eyes at Junior. I then proceeded to ask him if his girlfriend and him were still together (mind you he had no idea who I was.. yikes!). He awkwardly said no and from the look in his eye I could tell he thought I was creepy, but that didn’t stop me. Upon hearing no I immediately asked him to dance. (I was a ballsy little thang!) From there we danced all night and ended up exchanging names so that we could get eachothers numbers through Facebook… why didn’t we just exchange numbers there? Yeah, who knows. #highschool After the dance, we started getting to know eachother, texting constantly.. I’d hide from him at school.. ya know.. so ROMANTIC! After our first date at the bowling alley where I legitimately fell on my face and he didn’t judge me at all, I knew that this guy was probably going to be different than the other ones I’d dated. The next day he asked me to be his girlfriend and ever since then, I began to fall madly in love with this man whose compassion, work ethic and sincerity was evident to everyone. Since then it’s been 7 years and I can’t imagine who I’d be or what I would be doing if I wouldn’t have been the ballsy, boy-crazy teen that I was when I saw Junior at 15. To my friends… I told y’all he’d be my boyfriend one day ;)
How They Asked
Junior had planned a date for us in Balboa Park to walk around, visit museums, and just spend some time together. We had been trying to get back in the habit of more quality date days together so after our previous weekend in Mexico, we thought a day in Balboa Park would be perfect.Junior mentioned he wanted to walk in the Japanese Friendship Garden before we left for the day and I agreed as him and I had always wanted to go in the Japanese Garden and I was especially excited because I was the one who was always pushing for it, but never actually went in. We had a great day walking through the museums, enjoying coffee, sitting my a beautiful fountain and just enjoying our time together. As we were approaching the garden to leave, I complained of my feet hurting due to my heeled boots and mentioned “Maybe we should just skip the garden..” Calm, cool, and collected, Junior said, “Why don’t we just take a break and rest your feet before we go in?” I agreed and after 10 minutes of rest I was ready to go. We walked the beautiful green garden and as we were walking down towards the lower garden, there was a familiar face following behind us. It was my friend from high school’s boyfriend, but he and I had never formally met so I didn’t want to be creepy. I continued to walk down with Junior chatting and wondered why the familiar man was alone, but just brushed it off. We got down to a beautiful area with a bridge and a little creek. I, of course, wanted some pictures with Junior so I ran over to the rocks on the creek and made Junior take selfies with me. He was beginning to act a bit different, but he still kept it pretty calm and cool and simply said “let’s take a pic by the bridge now!” I agree and began walking towards the bridge. Junior asked the familiar face to snap a picture of us and I used that as my in to let Dan know that I knew him. He was very taken aback and honestly seemed a bit creeped out so I moved away and then finally saw my friend Sydney (his girlfriend) and she had her camera (she’d taken work photos for me around 2 weeks before) to which I was like “OMG, can you just get a pic of us on that camera and send it with my work pictures? (little did I know he was behind me fumbling to get the ring box out of his sock and my oblivion saved him). She agreed and I turned to face Junior… only he was down on one knee with the ring out. Everything clicked and started to make sense… finally.. LOL I was so surprised and honestly blacked out because all I remember was hearing “You’re the love of my life” but nothing like “Will you marry me?” After I shouted yes, I heard screams and turned to see our families and closest friends running from behind the trees towards us to congratulate us. It was the most perfect moment that I will never forget.
