How We Met
We first met at church, me a long-time SoCal resident, and he just visiting from the East Coast to work for the summer. He was certain that dating while doing summer sales would be pointless. I was sure that going after an out-of-towner – especially a door-to-door pest control salesman – was just bad news. It turns out we were both wrong, and we’ve never been so happy to admit it.
From almost the beginning of our relationship, we’ve been primarily long-distance, with 4-7 day trips together every couple of months. The exception was the very beginning, actually. After dating for all of two weeks, Christopher went to China for a study abroad program for four months, during which we FaceTimed every day without fail. To this day, enduring those four months without seeing him has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I was so sure he was the One, it was worth it. We still FaceTime every day, but we’ve had a chance to meet up in Orange County, Monterey CA, Ohio, and Vermont throughout our courtship. I’m looking forward to the day we get to stop saying goodbye and start taking all our adventures together.
how they asked
Christopher wouldn’t tell me where we were going, only that we had to dress up. When we pulled up to the helipad, I shouted that he was crazy and we climbed up into the helicopter laughing like two excited little kids. It was nearly sunset, so the view was amazing as we flew out of Long Beach, over the Pacific Ocean to a place I love, Catalina Island just off the coast of Southern California. When we landed, we took a cab to a deserted beach club and Chris led me across the sand to a gorgeous cabana, set up with candles and a treasure chest on the table. I couldn’t believe how perfect everything looked, or how we managed to get the whole beach to ourselves. Inside the chest was a rolled up letter, which he took and read to me – it was rewrite of a poem that I had written him while he was away in China, but the words were changed so it was from his perspective… “There are many things I can live without, and you my dear, you are not one of them.” With the biggest smile on his face, the cutest boy in the world then fell to one knee and asked me a question I had been waiting to say yes to for months.
