Story time with Mama

Dear Grayden,
*Today I want to fill you in on how your folks got together. So, sit back- in your baby swing, relax- with that binky in your mouth, and enjoy- your mom's terrible singing voice. (er, try to anyway...)*

Bubbie, Auntie 'Kayla, and I moved into a new house, and had just gotten settled in when some missionaries from the LDS church knocked on our door. We talked to them a few times and finally agreed to attend a few meetings. I was 11, almost 12, at the time. For the first couple months, nothing really interesting happened. Then, one Sunday, I went to church just expecting the same ol' stuff. But that day was different. I was talking to a friend when I turned around to say hi to someone else and... there he was. Lucky for both of us, one of the members came along and introduced us.

"KODIE GORDON"

That name and the person who had it were all i thought about for the rest of the day; he was cute. really cute. But I knew I had no chance; I was barely twelve and he was... I didn't even know how old he was! More importantly, I didn't know if he had a girlfriend and I didn't know anything about him; just that he was Kodie Gordon. So I asked the person who introduced us to tell me a little bit about him. He was sixteen and had just moved to Florida from Utah; I can deal with that, I thought.

The next time I saw him, he approached me and we started talking more. Over the next couple months, we got to be good friends and my teensy tiny crush wasn't so teensy tiny anymore. I didn't say anything to anyone- especially not him- though, because my mom had told me a long time ago that I wasn't allowed to date until I was sixteen. {Oh how I wished I was sixteen!}

AND THEN HE MOVED!!

I was really, really upset. This guy that I had really started to like ALOT, moves and doesn't even say good-bye before he goes... I just wanted to know why he would do that because, I'm no mind reader but he can't have NOT known how I felt about him. (I was anything but suddle at that age...) Eventually I moved on though; it took a little while but I did it. {okay, I'm lying. I never completely got over him; he was the first person I ever really liked, and it kinda hurt when he left.}

About a year and a half after he left, I was a church one sunday and I saw a little slip of paper on the bulletin board with his name and address on it. For a few seconds, I didn't think anything of it and I almost didn't remember who the heck he was; and then it hit me. I didn't write the address down at first, but after thinking a few things over, I decided to. I went home that night and wrote a letter. I had it all ready to mail; In the course of trying to find a stamp, I lost the letter!

Fast forward to October, 2008. I had just gotten out of a "relationship". (If you want to call it that. The guy was a jerk.) I was talking to one of the ladies at church, and she brought your dad up. I remembered the slip of paper, and the letter I had written but not sent. She said he joined the Air Force after he graduated, about three and a half years ago. At this point, I had forgiven him for leaving. There had to have been a reason for it and since I didn't know what that reason was, I wasn't going to be bitter about it. The lady urged me to talk to his sister, your Aunt Desiree, and ask for his address because she thought it would be good to re-connect with an old friend. The truth is, I was too scared. I didn't want Desi to think I was weird or something like that. So I asked your Great-Gram what she thought I should do. She wasn't much help. "Do what you think is right" is all she said;

A few weeks passed and I saw your aunt again. I asked- begged- Gram to get Dad's address from her. I was still scared of what Desiree would think but I had really started to miss my friend. So Gram got the address for me the next week. In late-October, I wrote him a letter telling him about what had happened since he left. It started like this:
"dear Kodie, I have no idea if you even still remember who I am but if not, thats okay because I'm going to keep writing anyway..."
He wrote me back and said he could never forgot about me. That was probably the happiest I had been in a long time; so I wrote him back and the next letter he sent me had his telephone number and e-mail address in it. It took me another letter and about a month to finally e-mail him; We e-mailed back and forth until early December when I finally decided to call him. That took a lot of guts, let me tell you.

It was a Wednesday night, and I used my grandma's cell phone to call him while I was at church with the other youth. We talked for about half an hour- I must've walked a mile and a half around the church building by the time we were done. I asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he wouldn't give me a straight answer. Then he asked me. I said I didn't know but that I was really into music and I jokingly added that some Air Force stuff would be cool. So your father, being your father, sent me an mp3 player and a heart pendant with the Air Force wings in the center. [What did i get him?! Well, I was going to bake cookies and stuff and send them to him but I never got the chance. Gram did it for me.]

I was at school one day before Christmas break, and I used a friend's cell phone to text him hello. We texted all through lunch and then almost every lunchtime after that; I was hanging out with a friend the day before Christmas, and I was telling her about him. She told me to call him, so I did. We talked for a little while, then i went home and went to sleep; Christmas WAS the next day and I wanted to get up kinda early. {I didn't wind up waking up until 10AM, but thats beside the point...} and just as the day is about to come to a close and I'm getting in the shower, my mom gets a call from my friend and hands me the phone. She said, "guess who I just got a phone call from..." "uhhh; I dont know, who?" "Kodie." and then she starts giggling. She told me when she picked up the phone and said hello, he responded with some cheesy line and she was all, "who is this?" He said, "well, I'm about five ten, 180 pounds, and I hear you think I'm kinda handsome." LOL. She thought it was her brother playing a joke on her. Once she figured out it wasn't her brother, and he got over the embarrassment, he asked for my number. She told him she would have to call and make sure it was okay with my mom first but that she would have me call him back. The whole time she's telling me this, I'm sitting in the bathroom with the water running because I was about to get in the shower; I gave the phone back to my mom and then got in the shower. Afterwards, it took me about half an hour to muster up the courage to ask Bubbie if I could use the phone to call him. I was sooo scared she'd say no or Poppa Wil would flip out because I wanted to call a boy. They didn't. We talked for a good bit before I had to go to bed; I said good-bye and promised to call him when I could.

On January 17th, I called him just to talk. I wasn't expecting anything to happen, but then he started complimenting me on stuff; I had written a letter telling him how I felt about him. I was planning on mailing it soon. Instead, I read it to him over the phone; it ended like this:
"I think I'm falling in love with you; scratch that- I am in love with you."
Then he told me he felt exactly the same way and read me a poem- yes, a poem- he wrote for me. After that, I had to get off the phone so I told him I loved him one more time and hung up. That was the first night I dreamed about him and there hasn't been a night since where he isn't in my dreams.

On February 2nd, eight days before I turned 18, he asked me to marry him; I, of course, said yes. We were married on the 6th of November 2009.

The rest is history.

Love you,

Mom 

wanna know his side of the story?

he says he liked me while he was in Florida too; he just never said anything because he wasn't sure how i felt and also because of what people would think. after all, he was sixteen and i was twelve. 

he's also told me that he's sorry he left me without saying good-bye but he didn't want to hurt me again. {you see, one thing i didn't mention was that there was this one time where i ran over to him to give him a hug because i hadn't seen him in about two weeks... he has it in his head that he squeezed me too hard, thereby cracking two of my ribs. i will admit, he did kinda hurt me but the pain went away in a few hours. it was nothing too serious. i try to tell him this and he doesn't believe me. he was really scared he injured me badly.} 

also, apparently, he went home one day after a church trip and told his mother, your Nana, that he met the girl he was going to marry one day. [he knew this at sixteen!?] 

his step-mom, your Grandma Katie, told me that after he moved back to Utah from Florida, they had some long conversations about "this girl in florida" and how much he cared about and missed her. {that girl is me.} he called your grandparents after he got off the phone with your aunt and told them what happened. he was really excited.

he was waiting for the right time to tell me how he felt and when i read him that letter, he knew.