Our Love Story

(written by Sarah, with comments by Nate in italics)

How We First Met: I had just moved to Arizona, a new place, a new start, and I had high hopes for new opportunities, especially in the dating area. I went to a big social event hoping to meet people, and one of the first guys I saw was Nate! I sat down at a table and met him and some other people. We had an engaging debate. Then I saw him at another event a few weeks later, and we talked again. By the third encounter he finally asked for my number. (I thought Sarah was a really intriguing and fun person the first time we met. We didn’t really have a debate. More of a lively discussion.)

Dating: On our first date Nate took me to a chocolate festival where they had everything you can think of made out of chocolate. We shared some chocolate covered french fries and many other chocolate related treats, and got henna tattoos. I could tell he was trying hard to impress me. He was cute and nice, but it really wasn't until our third date that I started considering that he might be more than just a casual guy friend. There were many fun and adventurous dates after that: Drive-in movies, hiking, playing sports, watching sporting events, camping, floating down the Salt River on inner tubes, concerts, live theatre, karaoke, salsa dancing, fun road trips, going to church together, long walks, and long talks. Fifteen months later Nate realized he just couldn't live without me. (After our first date we went back to Sarah’s place… and she made me help clean her neighbor’s kitchen! :) But after only a few dates I could tell that she was different from most of the other girls I had dated -- more fun, and less boring. And the more we dated the more I realized how special she is.)

The Proposal: I was awakened at 4:30 AM by a phone call from Nate. I answered, thinking for sure that something was wrong, that it was some kind of emergency. (Because who calls at 4:30 in the morning without an emergency?) Half awake I heard him say, "Please gather yourself and come out. I'm in your front room". Of course I didn't believe him because he didn't have a key.  However, my roommate was his accomplice!  In my pajamas, in my living room, (with bed head), I was greeted by a handsome man, dressed up, with lots of red roses, and appearing nervous.  He quickly knelt down on one knee, pulled out a ring, and asked me to marry him.  After I said “YES!” he gave me a big hug, then jumped up and said "OK, now we’ve got to go, you have 15 minutes to get ready." What? Did he seriously mean like right now, like are we getting married right this minute? Because that's how it sounded! But actually he had planned for us to take a hot air balloon ride, at dawn (15 minutes after the proposal). The balloon ride was followed by several other little activities that all had special significance to us. It showed me how much he was paying attention to who I was and what mattered to me. The whole thing was incredibly thoughtful and well planned, and that is pretty much how Nate is. (It might have been more romantic to get engaged while ON the hot air balloon ride, but I knew that Sarah didn’t want an audience, even if it was just the pilot, so I decided to propose before the ride. I think she’s still a little mad that I made her get engaged while half asleep, in pajamas, but it was all worth it!)

Getting Hitched: Eighteen months after our first date, we were married in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with lots of friends and family. Nate floated the idea of eloping, to avoid the stress, but I had always wanted to dance at my wedding, so Nate was kind enough to go along with a full blown wedding, and we had the most fun, bright, enjoyable wedding ever! We danced until our feet were sore then we drove away in our hot pink El Camino! (For some reason Sarah always wanted an El Camino. What a weirdo, right? :) So I bought her an old junker 1981 El Camino, fixed it up, got it painted hot pink, and surprised her with it on her birthday, which was just 2 weeks before the wedding. So naturally we had to take it to New Mexico for the wedding. When we were driving away from the wedding reception, heading to our honeymoon, it took a few tries to get the El Camino to start, which made me nervous, but we finally got it going and got out of there.  It would have been perfect if it had just backfired a few times while pulling out of the parking lot.)