How I Met My Husband…

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I decided to do something completely out of the realm of my normal fashion and beauty blog content and share something very close to my heart. In the spirit of all things love, I wanted to share the story of how Mike and I met and how we began dating, it’s a long one so buckle up. I didn’t tell my husband I was writing this so SURPRISE Mike!

It all started in the summer of 2007, in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire. Neither of us are from New Hampshire so it’s kind of a random place to begin this story but that’s what makes it so unique. That summer Mike was working at an all-boys summer camp, and I was working at an all-girls summer camp. At the time, these camps were brother-sister camps so the two camps got together frequently for counselor training, activities, socials, all the fun traditional summer camp things.

Mike and I were spending our summers working at our camps waterfront so we arrived a week early to participate in lifeguard training. I always tell people we met in a swimming pool because technically that is where this all began but if I am going to be completely honest, I don’t remember meeting Mike in the swimming pool. The lifeguard training was pretty intense, a lot of girls didn’t make it past the first hour so the ratio of men to women ended up being about 2 to 1. Not only were there more boys than girls but the boys camp employed tons of hot, super loud, in your face Australian boys so I don’t even slightly remember meeting my super quiet, now husband.

While I do not remember meeting Mike in the pool, I very vividly remember chatting with him later that evening in the staff lounge. I remember this meeting clear as day, I was sitting on the computer scrolling through Facebook, so 2007, and he walked up to me and said, “Who are you creeping?”. Now looking back at it, I can’t believe that my sweet, super shy husband would talk to any girl, but I am glad he did. We began chatting and like true millennials, immediately added each other on Facebook.

During the remainder of camp, we saw each other a handful of times, we occasionally messaged on facebook and maybe sent one another 20 – 25 text messages. I left that summer meeting lots of great people and if I am going to be really honest, my friendship with Mike was not something that stuck out to me as anything more than a good summer friendship.

Over the next three years while we finished, myself in California and Mike in Colorado we texted a lot and every once in a while Mike would have too much to drink and get the courage to call me. I have this really great picture of myself and my two friends, Jackie and Liz on Halloween and in the picture I am talking on the phone to Mike. Again, it was one of those nights were maybe there was a bit too much to drink involved.

During these college years we were genuinely good friends, it was never a romantic relationship, just a really good friendship.

Then 2010 rolled around and I was ready to graduate college. Mike still had one semester left but took a summer internship in California. I had a job offer in Maine and at the last minute decided not to take the opportunity, instead was going to move back home with my parents and find a job in California. It’s like true fate that I decided to spend that summer at my parent’s house because Mike’s internship was only about an hour away from my childhood home. At first, I really regretted not taking that position in Maine but now looking back there is absolutely a reason why I passed on that position.

From Friend To Boyfriend

The day of my college graduation party, June 5th, 2010, wa also the day that Mike was driving from Colorado to California to begin his internship. I invited him to my graduation party which was a very casual pool party at my parents house. I didn’t really explain to him the amount of people that would be there or any of those things, I just invited him to come. To my surprise, after a long day of driving, he showed up. It was a little weird to me that after only meeting a few times, he agreed to come to the party, but I am so glad he did.

The day after the party he asked if he could take me out and I, of course, said yes, I was so excited to finally spend time with him after all these years. It was that weekend that I quickly realized that maybe this is more than just friends.

The following weekend was my sweet nephew Hunter’s 1st birthday so Mike was going to come to his party. After the party, Mike was going camping and asked if I wanted to join. It was a beachside camping spot that I really loved so my answer was very easily yes. We were going to spend our third time seeing each other in years going camping, just the two of us, again all so weird but it just seemed right.

That night while we were at our campsite we drank Diet Coke and Captain Morgan and played rummy (the cocktails might have changed but this is still one of our favorite things to do together). While we were camping, I asked him if this was just a summer thing and he said it doesn’t have to be and that was it, he was officially my boyfriend. So after not seeing him for 3 years, and only hanging out with him 3 times, he became my boyfriend. I can’t believe I am sharing all of this because this sounds like we are absolute crazy people, I don’t know, everything just seemed so right.

My favorite part of this story is we met on June 13th, 2007 and we began dating on June 13th, 2010. It’s funny how life works. That summer we spent every weekend together, we went to baseball games, we went camping, we went to Yosemite, we had the best summer.

I want this to be the part of the story where I say when you know you know, but that summer I didn’t know what would happen when he moved back to Colorado. That night while we were camping did I think I would end up here married to Mike with two cats and such a happy life, absolutely not. I really believed that he would be my boyfriend for that summer and then he would go back to Colorado finish school and that would just be the end of it. Now that I am typing that out it sounds so harsh but honestly, that is just how I thought life worked.

In June of this year, we will have been dating for 9 years and married for 1 and a half. I am so glad I took those chances and invited him to my graduation party and went camping with him, if it wasn’t for those moments who knows what life would look like today.

Next month is our 3 year engagement anniversary so I am going to share everything I learned in all of those years of dating and our very us engagement story.