How I met Matthew? Well, I was in the process of finishing my teaching credential. My now cousin-in-law was getting married soon so her bachelorette celebration was at the end of the month. We were going on those Carnival cruises that take you from Long Beach down to Ensenada for the weekend. I was so stressed! It was the last week of school, I needed a good break from student teaching and I was single so I needed to have fun! Once we were on the ship, I just focused on hanging out with my sister, cousins, and the bride-to-be. Honestly, no one on the ship really caught my eye. After a day and a half, we finally made it down to Ensenada, and that day we were going to party at the famous Papas & Beer. We took a big bus up to Rosarito wearing our matching Laker shirts and we looked so good! Once we got there it was pretty dead since it was a cloudy Sunday afternoon but we were determined to make the most of it! After about an hour of dancing and taking shots, more people arrived. At this point, we were getting pretty faded when all of a sudden, these two random dudes joined our party! They started hanging out and asking us about where we were from and if we were Laker cheerleaders (wow lol). After a while, I started talking to one of the guys more and we realized we were both from Chula Vista! We chatted about high school and what we did for work. Towards the end, the bride-to-be was taking body shots and all of us got up to record it and that's when this guy asks for my number! I drunkenly saved my contact on his phone and we left to go back to the bus and that was that. We make it back to the ship and spend the next day sailing back to Long Beach. When I got back home to Chula Vista that Monday, I get a text from Matthew Ong which I then told my sister, "Nooo, the Mexico guy remembered me and texted! What do I do? I don't want to hang!" But I gave him a chance, we went on our first date and the rest was history.

My best friend Jon and I decided to go celebrate our birthdays because they are back to back. I was just recovering from knee surgery and was itching to get out. Jon had never been to Rosarito so we each packed a backpack and made it happen that weekend. On the last day, while we were eating I asked, “Want to grab a drink before we leave?”. It was a cold cloudy day but since we were taking an Uber back, we figured why not? We decided to hit up Papas and Beer for one last round. We saw a group of girls in Laker-colored shirts. I told Jon “Bro, down to see if we could hang out with them?” He agreed and that's when I saw this girl sitting up on this platform and I told Jon, “Bro I wanna see what's up with that girl.” But we went to the bathroom first. We walked out of the bathroom and two girls in purple shirts were outside and asked if we wanted to join their party! Naturally, we said yes. I got to hang with a cool group of people who were celebrating a bachelorette party. Kaiza busted out shots from her purse and finally, the girl I wanted to speak to came over to the group. Turns out I was sitting next to her sister so while they started talking we made eye contact. She couldn't tell I could see through her glasses! I asked for her info and she was hesitant at first but then changed her mind up and said. “I don't have service out here but let me see if I can roam and call you” lol I said, “You can just save it in my phone” she didn't remember her number. (Lol) She continued to make a call and saved it as “Jamie from Ensenda”, even though we were in Rosarito (lol). It turned out we were both from Chula Vista and lived within 15 minutes of each other. I'm glad Jon and I decided to go back for that drink and that I took my shot at the girl sitting on the platform. We finally linked up back in Chula Vista the following week and the rest is history…. The moral of the story, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take”. -Wayne Gretzky -Michael Scott -Matthew Ong.

April 29, 2018