December 2005

My husband and I met on the bus in 8th grade. We signed each others yearbooks. We also had Chemistry class together in high school (although I do not remember him being in my class). He said that his family also went to our church a few times. He remembers me well. I barely remember him, but I have proof of our friendship in my yearbook.

8th Grade Me...With Lots of Hair

Fast forward a few years. I have just graduated from college and return to my hometown to start teaching Spanish at a middle school. My then fiance and I break up a month after my grandmother dies. It was a really rough time for me. I get a weird phone call from the secretary in the middle of my class that a guy is there to see me. I'm thinking, "I recognize the name, but what is he doing here?" During my worst class, my first year of teaching, I step out in the hall and talk to him for all of 2 minutes. He lets me know he was on Spring Break and had come to the area and noticed I was teaching so he thought he'd stop in to see me. "Okay, weirdo. See ya," I'm thinking.

I head back to my wild and crazy 8th graders, but I can't get him out of my head. I look him up on his college's website (where he is completing his masters) and it has a phone number, so I call it. It's his voice mail, so I leave a message and think nothing else about it. Then, that evening, I get a phone call from him and we talk for hours. About everything.

Crazy Spanish Teacher Me 2001, Fresh Out of College!

We continue on like this for months. Just talking and him randomly driving 7 hours to see me...for dinner, after school...just whenever. I think we are friends. He invites me to his graduation and I decline. He then moves back to our hometown and needs a place to live. I have just bought a house, but my rent isn't out on my apartment, so I rent him my new house. He lives there for a few months and continues to pursue me. I keep him at an arm's length most of the time.

The House

He finally figures out that I'm not going to date him and quits calling me. The last thing we did together was go to a Billy Graham Crusade and leave during the invitation so we wouldn't get caught in traffic. His idea and I thought that was nuts.

Fast forward a few years, a few relationships on my part and a few years doing mission work in Mexico later, he's still on my mind. When I move home, I still own the house that I've been renting while I've been away, so I move in. I break up with my boyfriend and wait a few days before contacting him. He wants to know why I've called and is very stand-offish. What do I expect!? So we decide to meet at a local restaurant for dinner. I think he's going to pay, so I make no effort to pick up my half of the bill. I later find out that this drove him crazy. You see, I'm thinking we're on a date and he's trying to keep from thinking that we're on a date!

We go out a few more times and he seems to always get in line ahead of me and pay before I can get through the line! I try to impress him by rolling down a hill and various other things. I then call him one afternoon and he wants to know what I'm calling him all the time for, etc. We then decide we need to DTR (define the relationship) and head to dinner. This is our third time of going out really. At this dinner, I have to tell him that I'm SO SORRY for how I treated him and that I would like to date him with hopes of marrying him. Well, this puts a big smile on his face and he pays for dinner (after telling me that it drove him crazy the first night of me not offering). That was in August.

One Year Date Anniversary, August 2006

We were engaged in December 2005. It was a fun engagement, but that's another post. We were married in June (both of us still virgins at the age of 28) and will have been married 12 years in June. We then lived in the house that I rented to him for a year after we got married.

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I wrote this up years ago and shared it on my Facebook, but I wanted my Steemit friends to also hear our story! When I was teaching 8th grade, I always told my students they never knew who they might marry...even someone sitting next to them in Spanish class! The pictures are all mine and taken from my scrapbook!

Share your story of how you met your significant other and when you knew... I would love to read it! Use the tag #wheniknew!

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My post about the song I walked down the aisle to.

Five Facts about me that includes part of this story.