Rebecca

  Our Story, or How a Goofy Girl from Texas Met a Gentleman from Alabama   This story, like so many others, begins with a birth. Two births, actually - four years and three states apart. Two happy, adorable infants made two sets of parents happy...and frustrated...and then happy again.    Time passed.    The babies grew up.    Life happened. There was happiness, joy, and pain.   And then came the day when the (now) adults decided that spending their lives alone wasn’t going to work anymore. Andy joined eHarmony. Becca got several swift kicks in the pants from her best friend...and joined eHarmony. They both met people who disappointed them and let them down. Until the day that they were matched with each other...   Andy was intrigued by this girl who liked sci fi and Ben Harper, so he decided to message her. Becca was engaged by Andy’s direct manner and artistic background. Things ‘clicked,’ and they never looked back. Three weeks later they met. Six weeks after that they were engaged. Not quite eight months later they will be married.    Who believes in soul mates? We do.              The Proposal   So how’d he do it? As my kids say, “See, what had happened was...”   When we met for the first time, I created a scavenger hunt for Andy to find me. He was sent an email with an address and instructions for when he reached that address. Over the course of the afternoon, he had to solve a collection of clues that led him closer and closer to where I was waiting at the Biedenharn Museum and Gardens. He was impressed by this, apparently. So he decided his proposal would have to be “taken to 11,” so to speak. Which he proceeded to do.    The morning of May 12 (mi madre's birthday, incidentally) was like almost every other morning - my alarm went off at an ungodly hour, I watched the sun rise on my way to work, and I talked to my wonderful boyfriend. Students were abandoning ship in favor of starting their summer vacations early, so there wasn’t much to do at school other than finish the unit we were doing on movies as art. I had taken Friday off at Andy’s insistence, though all he would say is that I deserved a day off or something. So I went home, thoroughly ready to enjoy some Indian food with my friends and sleep-in on Friday.    Andy had been dropping cryptic hints all day about ‘following the yellow brick road’ and ‘not forgetting to bring my umbrella.’ He wouldn’t tell me what any of it meant, and instead only asked that I make sure I left dinner early enough to call him before he went to bed. He was meeting a friend for dinner (so I thought), and when we got off the phone he was on his way to the restaurant to meet her. Yeah...   I enjoyed a very pleasant meal with my dear friends, who were all in on the secret and had been charged with keeping me at dinner until the right moment. We talked, ate, and watched a great Indian movie (Bollywood is my newest obsession). It was starting to rain about 9, so I headed home.    When I got home, someone in a suit and a fedora walked out my front door carrying an umbrella. It was Andy! There were a few technical difficulties to be arranged, but a few moments later I was standing on my porch as he performed the song *and* dance routine from “Singin’ in the Rain” on my front walk, complete with puddle splashes. It was darling! Then he pulled me under the umbrella for his “speech” and finally knelt down (in a puddle no less!) to ask me if I would marry him. Crying, I said, “Yes!” and he put the ring on my finger.    It has been a beautiful journey, and I cannot wait to enjoy the rest of it with my other half!