Jarod and I met in the fall of 2008 in college. A friend of mine, who was dating Jarod’s roommate had wanted us to meet for quite some time. We both had refused. He did not trust her judgment on blind dates and I wanted nothing to do with a college hockey player. One night, my roommate was out of town and I got a last minute invitation to the hockey team’s Christmas party, which happened to be a “Tacky Sweater” Party. It was a Monday night, and I was already in my sweats. On top of that, I did not have a tacky sweater. After several phone calls and text messages, I finally broke down and said I would go stating, “I’m not taking a shower for him.”
After arriving to the party, I was immediately out of place. There was a sea of people in ridiculous outfits, none of which I knew, and I was in a black sweater. After an hour of being at the party, I still hadn’t met Jarod. I had wanted to meet him, be polite and leave, so I was very upset. After telling my friend that I was going to leave, he finally appeared! His version of breaking the ice was creating awkward moment after awkward moment. When we talked about hockey, I said I hadn’t been to a hockey game since my freshman year, because I no longer lived close to the rink and the lines were always ridiculous. He quickly offered his free tickets for me (weird). Then he asked me who the red-haired miner was in the claymation movie “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.” (even more weird) When I didn’t know, he acted like I was the biggest idiot in the world. After about a half hour, conversation got better, but I was ready for bed. When he asked me if I was going to the bars, my quick response was "Do people really do that on a Monday night?" As he walked me out of the house to say goodbye, I awkwardly held my hand out and said ,“It was nice to meet you.” I thought I would never talk to him again after that geeky move.
The next night, I received a text message, of all things asking if I would like to go on a date. Because he played hockey, he didn’t have the weekends free so he asked if I would want to do something on Thursday. I had an exam on Friday, and the next week was exams, so I asked if he was free Wednesday. He suggested that we go see Twilight, a movie that I did not want to see and I didn’t answer back. Fifteen minutes later, he took back that offer and tried to think of something else. We both decided that we would try and think of something to do. We went on our date the next day. Jarod did not have a car, so I offered to drive. He knew I lived in town and would be around after finals week, and within the first 5 minutes of the car ride ask asked me if I could drive him to the airport the next week after exams. Although I felt extremely awkward, for being put on the spot, I agreed. We had planned on going to dinner and then going to a local sculpture park to see their holiday lights display. Our first date ended up being a combination of a few in one. After seeing the lights, we went to his dorm and he played the piano for me, then went to get hot chocolate, then saw the movie Bolt. Our date lasted for the entire night. It was the best date I'd ever been on. When saying goodbye, we both said we’d see each other next week when I was supposed to take him to the airport. For the rest of the semester, we saw it each other everyday.
A year later, we were surprised with the news that we were pregnant! We had no idea how our lives would turn out, but we knew we loved each other and that we could love our baby the same way. That's when we decided we would take anything that came our way together and jump in head first.
