I transferred colleges after my first year. I was pressured to go away from home when I was applying for colleges and after my first year I knew that being so far away wasn't for me (now that makes me chuckle since I live 9 hours from where I grew up). So I transferred to a college closer to home (twenty minutes on the other side of the city from where I grew up) at the end of my freshman year. So when I started school my sophomore year I did the whole "Freshman Orientation" thing again. I was grouped with other transfers and I was thankful for that. It was a nice way to transition into a new school. In my group was a guy named Pat. He and I hit it off right away and after school started we would still meet up to study in the library or go to the dinning hall every once and a while. He was a nice guy and I think we went out a few times that winter. That is how I met his group of friends.
Pat was local as well and so his high school friends who went to school locally were around. I met them a few times with Pat. That spring we weren't hanging out as much and I hadn't seen many of them. This is until the following summer when I saw Sue at K-Mart (that's where she worked). She invited me to hang out and so I joined up with them again. I started hanging out with them more. That is the summer is when I met Matt.
Matt went to a college about three hours away from home and so when I first meet everyone, he wasn't around. But that summer when I was hanging out with them there he was. I honestly didn't think much of him at first. I mean, I thought he was cute- but he wasn't (and still isn't with people he doesn't know) a talker. On the other hand Phil was out going and easy to talk to, so I naturally got to know him faster. This would be instrumental to Matt and me getting together.
One night I had everyone over to my house, my parents were out of town- so shhhh and don't tell them. That night Phil was working and didn't come. I guess since he wasn't there to chat with I noticed Matt a little more than usually. He was quite funny himself and he had me laughing. I also noticed that when everyone left he stayed behind to help me clean up and I thought to myself- who is this guy? After that night I started paying a little more attention to him.
My friendship with Phil helped me out since Matt and Phil are/were best buds. After noticing Matt more I was liking the kind, funny, sweet guy I was seeing. I asked Phil about him and he filled me in that Matt is painfully shy and if I was interested I better be the one to make a move. I asked Phil to talk to him, but from what I recall he never did. I laugh now thinking about how shy Matt can be. God picked out a perfect complimentary partner right from the beginning. If you know me, you know that I'm NOT shy at all. I can make a friend in a public restroom, and I have. I can also talk to a brick wall and get it to answer. God gave me these skill for a lot of reasons, but my favorite reason is that my shy Matt needed an outgoing Jennifer!
I was nannying Emily and Ethan that summer (the best job in the whole world aside from being a mommy to Lauren) and I took them on "field trips" each week. One week I was taking them to the Children's Museum and asked Sue and Matt to come along with me. Bob, Emily and Ethan's dad, let me drive their SUV so I had enough room for everyone. And I was so excited to go!!! This would be the first thing Matt and I did that wasn't in a huge group of people. I honestly don't remember to much about the day at the museum but I remember the kids passing out in the back on our way home. I dropped off Sue and then headed to Matt's house to drop him off. While I had him alone and the kids sleeping I asked him if he wanted to go out some time, without the kids of course. He said sure. I remember being so nervous. I dropped him off and headed back to Emily and Ethan's house with major butterflies in my stomach.
I didn't hear anything from Matt for a week or so and then after hanging out with the group one night, Matt was driving, he asked me to stay in the car when everyone else was getting out. I did and we set our first date. We went to Applebee's for dinner. Remember how I told you I can talk to a brick wall, well my shy husband was very close to being a brick wall that night. I remember him looking at the TV that was behind me on the wall (he later told me it was because he was so nervous) and I was thinking- hey buddy I'm right here. Then we went to the dollar theater to see a movie. The movie was awful! It was "Traffic" and I remember thinking it was about a traffic jam and it was about drug trafficking. Not my kind of movie at all! We sat in his van after the movie and talked to wee hours of the night. In fact, I got into trouble for coming home so late that night. It was worth it.
After that first date we continued to enjoy seeing each other. A week later he came to my side of the city (we lived on opposite sides of the city- forty minutes apart) and we went to the bay and took a walk and we started "going steady." LOL! Oh I remember how awkward it felt and how nervous I was when we talked about it. That night he had dinner at my house and I remember my step-mom saying he was a handsome man. We started dating/going steady June 26th 2001. We got engaged July 20th 2004, and we were married October 22nd 2005.
Since we started dating so long ago, lol, we didn't have digital cameras back then and so I don't have too many of our first photos on the computer. I did find two picture from later that summer though...
Matt and I in August 2001
Matt and I in September 2001, at Matt's birthday party.
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