I was born and raised in Alaska so of course when it was time to pick a college, I had to get out. I actually applied to WWU on a whim. I had never seen the college and I didn't know a soul who went there. To some people that wouldn't make a good choice for college but for me it was exactly what I needed. I was accepted to WWU and decided to go. My parents and I went to freshman orientation so I could make sure I actually liked the place. At this orentation, there was the typical activities/club fair which of course I went to. I was really into band at this time and when we came to the pep band stand, my mom strongly suggested me to join. When it comes to a strong suggestion from my mom, you just don't say no. It also didn't help that the guy running the stand (Jake...he's important) was super excited about pep band and my mom just thought it would be the greatest thing. So, I went back to AK after orientation and let the boyfriend of 4 years (off and on A LOT) know that when I go to college I'm going single. Then I left and didn't look back.
Fast forward a few weeks.
One night at rehearsal, there was all of a sudden this new guy in the section. I had come in late that day so I was sitting on the end and he was sitting next to me. I totally sized this guy up and when I saw his nerdy watch I said in my head sarcastically "sweet watch" Except it didn't stay in my head...I actually to my everlasting shame said it outloud. And he took me seriously and began explaining his watch which I listened to as though I meant what I said. During this conversation I learned that his name was Chris, he was in the navy and his best friend was Jake (remember the excited guy at the activities fair?) who told him to come to pep band since Chris had just got stationed nearby. After this interaction, I was glad I was a jackass about the watch because here was an interesting human being to talk to and when you're some place new, those can be hard to come by. Over the next rehearsals I learned he was just as saracstic as I was, enjoyed a lot of the same things I did and I started to like him...a lot.
2 weeks after we first meet, we had just played at a football game in Seattle when Chris offered me a ride home. I was ready to take the shuttle back to Bellingham (2 hours away) but he seemed like he really wanted to spend some quality time with me and I wanted the same thing. So he drove me back north (out of his way I might add) and we had an amazing time just talking. Our first date was Denny's at about 1 in the morning. I held his hand because it just felt right. That was the October night we became us. And we stayed us even though 3 months later he left for deployment. When he came back, because I had decided to do summer school in WA we spent a wonderful summer together before he was off on his next deployment.
During his 2nd deployment we learned that there were only be a week between when he got back and when he would have to go on his 3rd deployment. I was going through a very rough time at that point and this just made it worse. He never waivered in his devotion to me even though I was an emotional wreck. During that wonderful week when he was back, a little more then a year after we started dating he proposed. I was 20 years old and even though I had never thought that I would get married that young, I started planning a wedding for August 2010 and all of the negativity I was going through turned around at that moment.
And here we are 4 years, 9 deployments and a wedding later. We will celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary in a little over a month and if it weren't for my mom making me go to pep band and Jake suggesting Chris should go too...who knows where we would be today :)
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