Although we first crossed paths in 2013, it’s a wonder we didn’t meet sooner. We both grew up in Okinawa, Japan but went to rival high schools. Our moms were teachers for DoDDS, which brought us to the island in the first place. It wasn’t uncommon for the teachers from the different schools to hang out together, since it was such a small community. Why the two of us never met at these teacher parties, I will never know. While on island, I frequently played soccer against Cody’s sister, so at the very least, I knew of his family. Fast forward to college, I would see Cody’s sister, Cassidy, around campus. I always thought it was strange that multiple people from our little island wound up at the small university in northern Colorado. Then in 2013, Cody and I ended up having a class together. I saw him sitting in the front of the class with a shirt from Okinawa. I stopped him after class to see the story behind the shirt. It ended up being a fairly brief conversation, as we both needed to get to our next class on the other side of campus. Outside of class, I didn’t talk to him again until well after we both had graduated college. From Cody’s point of view, “This really pretty girl approached me after class. I was dumbstruck and was barely able to answer her questions about my shirt.” During a trip back to Okinawa in 2016, Cody was invited to my parents house to attend my dad’s “book club” through a family friend, Allen. The “book club” being guys getting together for drinks. During this, Cody connected the dots that his host was the dad of the girl from several years earlier. In Cody’s words, “Your dad told me all about you. That we were both living in Greeley. How you played soccer growing up. That you had your degree in biology. As the conversation progressed, I couldn’t help but think about how cool this girl he was telling me about was. But alas, Emily had a committed boyfriend.” Fast forward to 2018, when Cody reached out to me looking for a sub for his rec soccer team. In Cody’s words again, “I tracked down her phone number through my family friend that introduced me to her dad. How could I forget this amazing sounding girl that played soccer, when my team needed a sub? Seemed like the perfect opportunity to reintroduce myself to the pretty girl from so many years ago. She lived up to her image in my mind’s eye. Very beautiful and fun to talk to but still in the same relationship as before.” Keeping in mind, I hadn’t seen him in 5 years, much less have held a substantial conversation with him. Again, this was a brief interaction, lasting a whole 90 minutes for the game. Finally, a year later, one of his high school teachers, Amy, flew to Colorado to meet up with my mom, who was also in town visiting. Knowing that Cody lived in the area, Amy invited him to meet up with us. Whether they will admit it or not, I think my mom and Amy knew exactly what they were doing when they continued to invite him over while they were both in town. Cody says, “I was excited to meet up with Amy, but really the prospect of being around Emily again was something completely different. Was Amy and Emily’s mom trying to set us up? Perhaps. If they were, I was happily walking into the trap they had laid.” Regardless, the spark was there. The fates were sealed. The rest, as they say, is history.