2. When you knew he was the one: self explanatory..but how and when did you know?

It’s not like a movie where I knew one day. It was something that happened over time. During one summer in high school, Tyler came to stay with me for 4 weeks. We had so much fun together and after his visit, I realized that there was not one single time where we both got sick of each other. So from there I started seeing him in my future.

The fact that we survived our long distance relationship during the last 2 years of high school was a huge thing. We knew that we wouldn’t be putting ourselves through this if we didn’t see each other in our future.

Also another moment was when we were talking about going to college together. Throughout college we learned how to be with each other after being in a long distance relationship then we lived together with some friends during our last few years of college. It was a great learning experience for both of us. I love having “what if” conversations so of course Tyler and I talked about our future together a lot.

We’re good at expressing our feelings and thoughts to each other so it was no surprise to us and everyone else that he was the one for me and I was the one for him. We were even being asked all the time when we were going to get engaged!

Old photo I put together in 2006

So technically I think I knew Tyler was the one for a long time but I didn’t really think about it at the time because I was so comfortable with him and we both were happy with our relationship!

After reading and enjoying Krysten’s Wedding Wednesday posts, I thought I’d do the same thing. So here I go!

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together…etc.

Tyler and I first met on my first day at the deaf school (sophomore year in high school). I was outside of the dorms. We lived there during the week and went home on the weekends. Anyways, so I was talking with my friends when Tyler came up to me and awkwardly asked me what my name was. He didn’t really know how to sign at the time so he was clumsy and he didn’t even understand what I said when I finger spelled my name. He smiled then walked off. This was just the beginning…

Tyler never gave up trying to talk to me and sat with me on the bus when we went home on the weekends. He’d even say “Hi, mom!” to MY mom. Of course my mom thought he was cute and sweet! I shrugged it off because at the time I was dating someone else. I was at the age where I was interested in boys that were so cool and not so nice like Tyler. I enjoyed Tyler’s company as a friend and nothing more than that. After school he would always go to his dorm and finish his homework and call his Mom for their daily chat then come over to my dorm to hang out. My dorm counselor always came to my room to say, “Tyler’s here to see you!”

The body language is so obvious!A few months after I broke up with the boy I was seeing, Tyler started flirting with me again. He would let me borrow his sweatshirt and CDs to listen to every night. One night I kissed him on the cheek before he went back to his dorm. Immediately that night I felt confused and guilty for leading him on so I wrote him a letter explaining I didn’t want to hurt him and thought it would be best if we were just friends. Tyler ignored everything I said and would not give up.

The day came where everyone was discussing who was taking who to prom. Tyler asked me to go to prom with him and I told him I would as friends only. One day after school we all were hanging outside with our friends. One of my friends said she thought Tyler was cute and jokingly said that she should ask him out. I quickly reacted by saying, “noo!” and then realized I did like him but was afraid of getting into a relationship mainly because my family was moving to Arizona that summer.

A few weeks went by. Tyler and I were chatting online and he had told me he needed to ask me something on the bus when we go back to school on Sunday. Right then I kind of knew he was going to ask me out again. I was so nervous! We sat together on the bus and he asked me if I would be his girlfriend. I said yes! I think at the time he was more excited than I was. He’s definitely a mama’s boy and called his mom to let her know we were going steady. We went to prom together and this was pretty much our first date. Also our first real kiss was at prom too and that’s what made it more special!

Prom 2001School was coming to an end. We had to figure out where our relationship was going since my family was moving to Arizona. Tyler suggested we stay together and attempt the long distance thing. Being long distance was the most difficult thing we went through for 2 years before we finally went to college together. It was a whole new relationship for us in college since we were on our own and seeing each other everyday compared to 1 week every 2 months or so. It was awesome!

Tyler visiting in Arizona during one summerWe dated for 7 years before getting married and now it has been 10 years since we started dating. So hard to believe that it’s been really that long!

Tonight at 8:15PM, it will be our 10 year anniversary of being together! I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. I feel young but at the same time I feel old if it’s been 10 years already! And who says we can’t have two anniversaries?

We have a special story that we can tell our children some day. That we’re high school sweethearts. We never broke up or took a break. Sure, there were some bumpy rides along the way but not bumpy enough to break up. Even though there may have been some conversations of breaking up a few times but we never did. We even survived a long distance relationship from 11-12th grade. We even survived during the difficult times where people doubted our relationship especially some of our high school friends. Some of them even encouraged us to break up during our long distance relationship. That proved our love was strong enough to keep the bad influences out of our relationship.

We survived all of that and here we are 10 years later! I still look forward to seeing him everyday after work. Even when we fight, we can never stay mad at each other for long. It’s like a fight you have with your siblings where sometimes you forget you’re mad at each other 10 minutes later. We have our moments…of course, we’re not perfect but still very much madly in love!

I’m looking forward to the next 10 years with Tyler….even the pretty children we’ll have in the next few years!

P.S. I think it’s so cool that our 10 year anniversary is on the same day that William & Kate got married!