How We Met

It was December 7, 2007 that I went to Disneyland with some friends. Near the end of our time at the park, my friends and I were in line at Space Mountain. There was this cute guy ahead of us and he started flirting with me. After the ride he asked for my number, we went out the next week and the rest is history!!!!



TOTALLY JUST KIDDING. :)



Without further adu, The Real Story.

One of my good friends, Ashley, works at an organization that had a day at Disneyland for its employees. She had an extra ticket to Disneyland that day and asked me if I would like to join her at the park on December 7, 2007. Her boyfriend's mom works at the same organization as Ashley, so Ashley informed me that we would be spending the day with her boyfriend and his family. On Disneyland day the Tyler family picked Ashley and me up at her house early in the morning. I didn't really know what I was getting into when I entered their car that day, but I quickly came to the conclusion that it would be easy to make fast friends with this family. They have been a part of my church for many years, but it is because of the size of our church and our different paths of ministry at the church that I'd never met them before. They were all welcoming, kind and just plain fun.

During the car ride down I learned that in addition to those members of the Tyler family that I had already met, Mr., Mrs., and one of their sons, Todd (Ashley's boyfriend), there was one other member: Todd's brother, Brent, would also be meeting us at Disneyland midway through the day with a good friend of their family.

I remember exactly where we met. It was right after Mr. Tyler, Todd, Ashley and I had gone on California Screamin'. We came out of the ride and caught up with the rest of our group where they were gathered with the recently arrived Brent and Mike. I shook hands with both the boys, noted to myself that Brent had strikingly blue eyes and a confident handshake (LOVE confident handshakes from guys), and then Ashley and I led the way to the next attraction. As we walked I thought to myself that Brent reminded me of one of those super cool techy guys that are interviewed on the behind-the-scenes footage of The Lord of the Rings, especially the guys dealing with special effects and animation.

When we sat down in the theater of California Adventure to watch the live Aladdin play, Brent and I sat next to each other and we had a get-to-know-you conversation while we were waiting for the production to start. I was intrigued when I learned from him that he was, in fact, one of those super cool techy guys, he's a 3-D animator! I liked the way he talked and we had an easy time with the conversation.

During the rest of the day my attention was gradually becoming more and more focused on him. I really enjoyed watching him interact with his family, it was apparent that they had great relationships with each other, they reminded me a lot of my own family in many ways. Brent and I walked and talked together a LOT that day, and much more than once he made me laugh, I really liked his humor. At one point we got on the topic of favorite Fantasyland rides, and I told him that by far my favorite ride in that land was Peter Pan, but that I hadn't been on it in ages because the line was always so stinkin' long every time I approached it. So I thought the following story was very sweet, though I'm not SURE it really meant anything at the time.

It was late into our evening at Disneyland, and our group was beginning to get tired and running out of ideas of what to do next. At one point the general sentence being uttered from everyones' mouths was "Where should we go now?" Brent took that opportunity to say matter-of-factly, "Fantasyland." When our mob arrived in Fanasyland, the next question that went forth from the sleepy mouths was "What should we do here?" (I didn't ask that question...I KNEW what I wanted to do in Fantasyland, but because I WAS relatively new to the group I wasn't brave enough to suggest it myself.) I was so happy and touched (in my girly, assuming way) when Brent answered the mob's question with a confident "Peter Pan." The ride was the perfect PERFECT way to end the day.

Brent and I left each other that night with a simple "It was nice to meet you."

I went home that night with happy memories and a hope that I would see Brent again somehow soon.

I think it was less than a week later that I got a phone call from Ashley, telling me that Todd and Brent wanted to go bowling with us. It's a long story, but the bowling idea turned into hanging out at the Tyler place with pizza and a movie. A couple of weeks after that night of dinner and a movie, I got another call from Ashley telling me Todd and Brent again were interested in going bowling with us. The four of us decided to go to lunch after church one Sunday, then we went bowling. When bowling was over, Brent didn't seem to want the day to end, so he asked us, "What next?" We decided on the movies. He paid for my ticket that night, I got pretty adrenaline-y when he asked if he could do so.

A couple of days after that, Brent called me and invited me to hang out with his family during their Superbowl party. I said yes to the invitation and had a BLAST hanging out with them again. (My post entitled "Happyness" was written right after that day.)

FINALLY, a day or two after the Superbowl, Brent called me and officially asked me out. It warranted much squealing from me after I hung up the phone.

Going out with him one-on-one for the first time was so awesome. We really got to have some good, deep conversations, and it was encouraging to me that our conversations revealed that we shared a common bond: a love for the Savior who has bought us from sin and its results with His own blood. In addition to our more serious conversations we had plenty of light-hearted ones also, and we laughed a LOT together.

From there you pretty much know the story, of course there were more dates in between the first and the trip to Disneyland written about below, but I think you get the gist.

And now we're hopelessly and helplessly in...like.