Love Story

Happy Anniversary to us!!!! Rich and I celebrated our 5th anniversary yesterday on Friday the 13th and it was not unlucky at all! In fact it was the complete opposite. I got the best surprise EVER! I’m talkin’ EVER!!!!! Rich casually brought my gift in an envelope and assured me that it wasn’t anything big and to not get too excited. Such a liar! I opened up the envelope and peeked in………Juanes? Juanes!?!? JUANES!!!!!!!! What? Are you serious? 2 tickets to go see Juanes in concert in October!!! I am beyond excited! The funny thing about all of this is that on Tuesday I was cleaning (tuesday’s are my cleaning days) and blasting Juanes on Pandora. I was thinking about how much I would LOVE to see him in concert because he is amazing and I love every single one of his songs. 3 days later…I’M GOING TO HIS CONCERT! Best anniversary present ever! Best husband in the entire world! I love you Rich!

Sooooo, we’ve been married for 5 years and I feel like it’s been the craziest and best roller coaster ride of my life! I’m such a cheese-ball that I spent half the day thinking about how we met and our courtship. Now that I’ve had a chance to look back at my blog I realize that it is one of the most important stories that I have yet to blog about! Geez, do I want my kiddos to know how I met their daddy while I still remember or not?!?! YES! So here it goes:

Let me just start out by saying that initially I was soooo not into “looking” for a husband. I had just gotten home from my 18 month mission in the most amazing place in the world! Shout out to all my Temple Square peeps! I had been home for about 4 months and got right back to work at The Dutton's Theater as the lighting director, pushing buttons to light up the stage. I was getting settled back in to regular life and hanging out with some girls from BYU-Idaho who were interning there for the summer. Lisa was one of those girls and we bonded instantly. We had so much fun being crazy.

So, one day Lisa asked me if I would go with her to the singles branch in Springfield. I totally saw the singles branch as a meat market and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I had told myself that I was NOT going to go there to find a husband after I got home from my mission. But she convinced me to just try it out so I did. I had fun! I loved being around people my age and loved the idea of going to activities and just hanging out with a bunch of friends so we went again the next Sunday! That was the Sunday that changed my life:D There were 2 guys sitting behind us. I didn’t know who they were or what they looked like because I hadn’t bothered to look back at them but Lisa dared me to turn around and talk to them after sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting ended and I am not a shy person and especially not at that time and place when it came to guys. I turned right around and said “Hi! My name is Jessica. What’s your name?”  By that time there was only 1 guy sitting there. No, it wasn’t Rich, it was Ryan my brother-in-law. He was nice and my sister-in-law will be happy to know that he was very quick to mention his fiance:D So we chatted for a bit and that was that.

The 3 hours of church were pretty uneventful. We met a bunch of people but nothing super exciting, until it was time to leave. Lisa and I and a couple of our friends walked out and as we were walking to our car guess who was behind us……Ryan and the other guy. Not gonna lie, at first glance I though the other guy was pretty cute so I used my previous acquaintance with Ryan to find out about this other guy. I turned around and said “Ryan, right? And what’s your name?” Ryan introduced him as “Richard” and Rich immediately corrected him and said, “Rich!” YAY!!! I met him!!! So we talked for all of 10-15 second while walking to our cars and then that was it. Me and my posse got in our car and the 1st thing I said was, “Helllllloooo Rich!” and we all busted out laughing! Then my friend Lisa said, “You are totally gonna marry him!” And we all laughed and laughed and laughed!

I went home and the strangest thing happened. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rich! I mean, I had just seen and talked to him for a few seconds and knew NOTHING about him yet I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I even told my sister-in-law that I thought it was so strange that this guy was just sticking in my head. I couldn’t wait to go back to church on Sunday! Finally Sunday came and HE*WASN’T*THERE!!!!!!!!! I was so bummed. I was so curious to see what I felt when I saw him again. Then the next Sunday there he was! Do you believe in love at first sight? I do. I lived it. I experienced it. It was such a different feeling than anything I had ever felt before with boyfriends or crushes. This is going to sound like the CHEESIEST thing you’ve ever heard but it was a “SPIRITUAL CONFIRMATION”

Yep, it’s true. From the moment that I had that feeling I knew that I had to date this guy and I absolutely pursued him. I am so glad I did because as I would later learn, he was closed off and hardened because of a very recent experience. Obviously, eventually those barriers came down and he stopped letting fear get in our way. He gave up a lot of plans and dreams for me~to make my dreams come true. He really, truly is my dream come true. He is the reason that the title of my blog has been “Livin’ the dream” because since I met him, I am.