Our first date is symbolic for how the rest of our relationship has been: spontaneous, hilarious, and genuine. At the time, Jamie was a high school science teacher and I was in my second year of nursing school. We met up in a park in Manchester, NH that was half way for the both of us. I sat on a bench and waited and waited. Butterflies filled my stomach as I wondered where he was. I texted him to find out scared I may be blown off, but he was an hour late because he was helping students who stopped by last minute. As a previous teacher, I completely understood and believed him. He showed up in sandals, jeans, and a blue t-shirt. He had a confident walk and a huge smile on his face where I was nervous and uptight. He immediately sat down beside me and put his arm around my shoulder and commented on the weather. I laughed and said, "well, we've missed our dinner reservation and the start of the movies so let's just wing it." We got in the car to go to dinner which was really in walking distance, but I was so nervous I put Manchester, England (UK) in my GPS. After 2 miles down the road, Jamie realized the pizza restaurant was in walking distance and we turned around. We shared 2 pizzas and he enjoyed sharing our dinner conversation with two women beside us he overheard talking about raising chickens. This should have been my first clue. After a great dinner, we walked down the main street of ManchVegas and ended up in a hookah lounge. It was more for the 'never experienced this' moment. Afterwards, he got takeout friend chicken and we went back to the bench we met on and enjoyed the river and moonlight. When I got home my father asked me how it went and I said I wasn't sure. He was the one to say "give him another shot, first dates are always nerve-racking." :) Almost 7 years later, we are getting married!!
Jamie signed up to attend a conference for work on the big island of Hawaii and I sure wasn't going to miss this trip, so I bought myself a plane ticket and joined him. After our 7 days on the island were coming to a close, we were getting non-stop notifications from the airlines about a potential blizzard to hit New England. Ultimately, our flights were cancelled and we needed to re-book, but due to how far away we were and the timing of things we were able to stay an additional couple days. Knowing we had this extra time, we saw more of the island and was able to fully enjoy the vacation aspect to this trip. Jamie had bought special "kona wood" and we needed to ship it home but being a Sunday all the post offices were closed. So I called up the hotel where the conference was and asked if they would do him this favor since he attended their conference, they said sure! After we worked out details of this box of wood with the customer service office, Jamie took me back to the balcony where we spent our first moments on the island together before the conference began. He asked me to marry him from the same chairs we first began our trip. We were so busy getting engaged and enjoying the moment we forgot about our plane. We rushed to the airport (20 minutes away), turned in our rental car, and literally ran onto the plane as we were the last ones to arrive. When later I asked him why it took him 9ish days to propose, he said he was waiting for the right moment and finally ran out of 'right moments.' To me, it was perfect.