Red Sox News: [six years from] our very first date

Mr. D wasn't even supposed to be at the Glenwood, but as fate would have it, one of his best friends, Dustin, decided last minute to bump up his wedding a few months earlier and bailed as Mr. D's roommate. Living with brother Mike at the Glenwood was sort of a fall-back option.

Apartment 51: Mager, Jasmine, Amax, Katie, [me], Keely.

Apartment 89: Garrett, Jamie, Ryan, Mike, Cameron, Mr. D.

Mr. D and I had met a few weeks prior, mostly due to the fact that my roommates had been hanging out with his roommates [especially big brother Mike] over the previous few summer months. Our collective roommates were constantly doing things like movie nights [first time I watched What About Bob? I was feeding Mr. D popcorn in our Glenwood living room] and attending ward functions [like the getting to know you activity, or the informal slip&slide party, or the ultimate frisbee activity where I had no desire to be social...]. I remember thinking how unfair it was that Keely and Jasmine were so at ease with all these boys they hung out with, and I felt completely lost in the shuffle. Not to mention I was gone for the first real weekend of school because I flew back home for my cousin's wedding.

All the guys they hung out with [including Mr. D] seemed really nice, but they didn't know me, and our ward had some seriously gorgeous girls to compete with... overall, I was pretty intimidated and by the end of that first week of school had resigned myself to the fact that I would probably just focus on getting my grades up sophomore year and worry about dating my junior year.

Thursday September 15, 2005 was The Day.

I was painting a mural in the hallway outside our apartment for a Humanities assignment ALL DAY. Like from 7am or something ridiculous, right through lunch and dinner. All day I had people coming by to admire my handiwork, talk with me, whatever. I don't even remember what it looked like, all I remember was a tree and some football related logos. Anyways, Mr. D was one of those people who stopped by to see what I was up to during those long hours. Towards the end of the evening, he stopped by in a backpack, headed to the library.

I remembered [with only a slight amount of panic] the 7 other classes I had to study and do stuff for, and offered to go with him. So I quickly cleaned up, grabbed my books and off we studied until the music sounded around midnight, telling us it was time to go home and the library was closing. As we walked home, we chatted and Mr. D mentioned something about food. I wasn't hungry but I really wanted to keep talking with him... he was so funny and just a really nice guy. We headed to McDonald's but they were closed inside and wouldn't let us walk through the drive through. So off we went to Denny's, for a brownie a la mode. We chatted for an hour or so in that little booth and then he walked me back to our apartment complex.

I came home that night [well, it was in the wee hours of the morning] to my roommate in the living room asking me if I owed her M&M's [for holding hands] or something more. I laughed it off, telling her how silly that suggestion was, we were just good friends and nothing more. Sure, I thought he was gorgeous and loved being around him, but I was pretty sure he was not interested in me in that way.

At a BYU game: Me and two of my roommates, he with two of his: Jasmine, me, Mike, Mr. D, Cameron, Amax.

From that night on, everything was a bit of a blur for about a week. Somehow we exchanged numbers and spent the next week sleeping very little, hanging out all day and staying up till the wee hours of the morning talking at night. We watched movies, went to games, walked to class and ate together...we were inseparable. A week later, we were talking outside my apartment and I think he mentioned something about us dating. I was confused and asked him when it was that we started dating, thinking of course this was just casual and he surely must be dating other girls. Mr. D rightly reminded me that he would have had NO time to see other girls, since all his time was spent with me :) He always was the smart one in our relationship. We pinpointed the library night [with Denny's] as the 15th and our first official date. We've since had a bit of a falling out with Denny's, but still celebrate every September 15th with a brownie a la mode, this year at Bob Evan's.

On our one month "anniversary" I got to see Tom Brady in person [only like my biggest dream since I was 16] and go to Denver for a Patriot's game with brother Cory [pictured with friend Kyler] and meet my future father-in-law [even if the only thing I remembered about him at the time was that he was really into these South Beach Diet bars!]