Change of plans!

As with any good story reminisced among friends, there are always two very different versions of the same experience. Both of which are probably remembered incorrectly. However… these are our stories. Robert – I remember it like it was yesterday, back when going to Asian league basketball tournaments were much more about how many girls you could say hi to rather than the actual games. But there we were… two strapping young lads, Rob and Jonathan Barreto, showing up to the game in our normal fashion. Wrinkly plain white tee, blue team basketball shorts, and our $135 dollar Jordan’s which took 2 months of hoarding lunch money given to us by our parents in order to afford. We were skinny, but boy we packed some heat on our feet. I remember entering the front entrance of the gym and immediately looking down at my feet to make sure I had made it safely across the parking lot without scuffing my shoes. Then looking up again only to realize that I couldn’t move, mouth wide open, heart felt like it was going to jump ship. I don’t quite remember how long I stood there, but it was long enough to have JB look up at me with an expression as if to say.. “what the hell are you doing?”. Out of the hundred people in the room, for some reason I immediately saw her, sprawled across the gym floor giggling with friends. Probably laughing at how stupid I looked standing there in the doorway. But long story short, Jonathan knew pretty much every girl in the league and introduced me as his goofy awkward friend and the rest, as they say, was history… Shelby- The first time I met Robert was at a mutual friend’s house party. A heavily inebriated young man stumbled up to me claiming we had met. Before having enough time to even respond he completely confessed his love to me and told me that one day he was going to marry me. We swapped numbers and after weeks/months of trying to ignore his texts I finally gave in. Suffice to say that love persists, or at least Rob does.

Being together for over 9 years, I already assumed "it could be ANY day now", but Robert managed to surprise me. He told me we had to go to a BBQ at his Uncle Greg's house. A couple days prior our best friends Brennen and Jenelle made a comment like, "See you at Uncle Greg's". I thought it was just a BBQ with our friends. We were getting ready to head to his Uncle's house and Robert was wearing my papa's Hawaiian dress shirt. I asked him, "Why are you getting so dressed up for a BBQ? Take it off, you only wear Hawaiian shirts for special occasions". We started driving to his Uncle Greg's house, but stopped at Rocketship park (which is literally down the street). He told me he wanted to show me something so we got out of the car. Both of our families were waiting for us next to the tree where Robert asked me to be his girlfriend 9 years ago. He got down on one knee while "At The Beginning" was playing, which has been our song for 9 years and asked me to marry him. Everything about the proposal was perfect! We went to dinner afterwards with our friends and family to celebrate.