How we met, a love story

I've been asked several times to share the story of how DH and I met. I thought this would be a good time to do that. Our weekend wasn't busy, it rained, I hobbled around, not much to report so a story from the past :)

I was a single mom teaching first grade in CA. My 2 older girls went to school where I taught and little Pickle spent her days playing with her best friend Ashley and her family. It worked out great because they lived a few blocks from the school and I could drop her off on my way to work and then when Connie went to pick up her older daughter she would bring J to my classroom. The girls would play and do homework and then we'd head for home. Anyway, I made a good friend while teaching there named Ellen. I'm not sure what we had in common because she was quiet a bit older than me, happily married to the love of her life, never had children and traveled the world. Her husband was an AF Col and they had been stationed lots of interesting places. Still we became great friends.
One day Ellen came to school and told me that she had met someone the night before. Al (her husband) was a fighter pilot and a guy he had flown with (DH's uncle Tom) was in town TDY. They had dinner with Tom and his nephew. Ellen came back to work the next day saying how wonderful DH was, tall and handsome and smart. He volunteered with some youth program and was kind and easy going. This impressed Ellen. After she told me all about how great he was she said that she told DH that we met at The Great Wall (a local Chinese restaurant) every Friday night and she invited him to meet us there that weekend. This wasn't exactly the truth. We had gone there before, and we did spend our free weekends together sometimes but every weekend was a bit of a stretch:)
That Friday Ellen and Al, another single teacher named Kim, another teacher and her boyfriend and I went to the Great Wall. Kim and I were both meeting "the catch". We got there first and sat down at a table. Before we got there Ellen had worked out a strategic seating arrangement because she said he was a bit of a low talker and mumbler and wanted us to be able to hear him. (he was, but he's kind of out grown it...kind of). Kim and I could see the door and when he walked in Ellen said there he is, and oh, he's brought a friend. We thought he was handsome, and so was the "friend" (who turned out to be his father visiting during a work out of town weekend.) Dinner was fun. We laughed a lot and the food was good. I didn't really think too much about it because although he was very nice, and indeed handsome, he wasn't LDS.

The next details I am not sure I remember exactly the right order but somewhere along the way he called Ellen and asked for my phone number, she e-mailed me and asked if that was okay, I said yes and he called. We talked on the phone a couple times over the next few days and then he left for Ohio for Christmas.

When he got home a week later he called and asked me out. I said yes but was a little nervous because I wasn't sure that he knew which one I was. Kim was tall and blond and single. I was short and dark. He came to my apartment and when I opened the door I could tell I was the right one. Whew! He came in and I showed him my apartment and pictures of the girls then we went out. At the end of the evening he asked what my plans were for the rest of the weekend. I told him I was going to church the next day and invited him to come with me. He agreed right away so the next day he came and met the girls and went to church with us.

Note: this was the first time they had met anyone I had dated. I didn't want to involve them in meeting a bunch of guys who turned out to be "someone mommy was dating" but I had a good feeling about him and I also had a strong confirmation to my prayers that he was a good guy and that he would accept the gospel, if I presented it non apologetically and with courage.

We went to church and while we were waiting for the meeting to start the conversation went something like this: he asked me who are two guys with name tags? I said the missionaries. What do they do? They teach people about the gospel. When can I meet them? (as soon as I finish scribbling this note and passing it back to them) After church. Long story short he started the lessons. We started dating.
On February 13 he got baptized. It was very nice. My dad baptized him and my best friend Nellie was there and several ward members. After the baptism he said I need to talk to you and we walked down the hall. I was thinking, Oh great, he's been baptized for 5 minutes and he's changed him mind already..What do I say? Instead he got down on one knee, pulled out a beautiful ring and proposed. I said yes and after a moment we walked back down to see our friends. There were tears and hugging and laughing and it was a great day.

Four months later we were married, six months after that we moved to TX. It was a whirlwind. He has remained true and faithful to his baptismal covenants. He is one of the smartest people I know, he's not easy going, but he is a catch and that is our real life love story.