Our Story: How We Met

So, I keep hearing things like "You eloped?!?" and "You knew Ryan in high school!?" I guess it's about time to review for those who don't talk to me all that often.

Yes, Ryan and I met on the internet back in 1998 when it wasn't cool to meet people on the internet. I say we met on Yahoo! and he says MSN. We'll never agree, but it really doesn't matter. We started "dating" by running up phone bills and ticking off our parents. We emailed pictures of ourselves to each other, chatted over the internet after school and always planned to meet face to face someday. We'd each drive toward the other and meet somewhere in the middle of Utah.

Ryan will remember more specifics, but he broke up with me cuz we could never meet. I remember being devastated. We got back together for a bit, but broke up shortly thereafter. It just wasn't our time.

Fast forward to 2003: I had been dispatching for a few years. Ryan and I kept in contact by email. I was entrusted with being the 'senior dispatcher escort' type person for a dispatch training in SLC. It was me 'in charge of' 5 other girls. (Who thought of THAT plan?!?!) So, I emailed Ryan and told him that I was FINALLY headed north and did he wanna meet up. He said sure.

So, that whole week, we were in contact by phone and text message to set up when and where we'd meet. There was only 1 car between the 6 girls, so we all had to be together or plan to drop some off at a location and do our thing and then pick them up. So, the night I was going to meet Ryan, the non-drinkers were going to walk around Temple Square and the 21 & over crowd was going to hit a bar called Port O Call.

So, we got to the bar and I waited for Ryan to show up. He finally did and I remember we were both so surprised at having the familiar voice actually coming out of a moving, living, breathing person rather than a phone or an email.

Anyway, we were both kinda uncomfortable in that scene, and at that time. It was strange to meet someone you knew so well for so long and be awkward about it. So, we didn't hit it off or anything, but we still kept in touch. It's true, I met my husband at a bar in Salt Lake City, Utah. But that's not where I 'really' met him.

Tune in next time when you find out "2006: How We Fell In Love"