It's Our Love Story, and Baby I Said Yes.

As I was blog surfing today I read my friend Athena's blog, and in celebration of Valentine's Day, she did a post about how she and her husband met and fell in love. I thought it was a great idea, being how I love Valentine's so much and I don't think I've ever even documented how me and Buck came to be so I jumped on board. Feel free to do the same!
Five and a half years ago, approximately in March of 2007, I was living in Pinnacle Canyon View Apartments behind Wal-Mart in Orem.  My younger sister had just moved into the same apartments two buildings down from me and I wanted to borrow her curling iron so I ran down to her apartment. She let me in and went to fetch her iron and I hung out in her living room. Sitting all alone in the dining room at their kitched table was a blue eyed brunette guy in a bright blue collared shirt and blue jeans. We made eye contact, and I couldn't think of a single thing to say in the awkward silence because I was blown away by how handsome and good looking I thought he was.  I'm not usually an awkward silence person; I talk to people I don't know all the time, even if what I say is totally lame. Finally he said "Hi" in the pure tone of "Why are you staring at me, stranger?" I smiled and said hi back right as a skinny little blonde girl walked in from one of the back bedrooms and sat right on his lap, putting her arms around his neck and calling him babe. Right. Of course he was taken, and what was I going to do, I mean really? Saved by my sister appearing with her curling iron, I grabbed it and bailed. I had occasionally thought of the beautiful mystery boy after that, but I was currently in Paramedic school, and was taking on 120 grueling hours of clinicals and rides per week. Plus working at my job. I was barely sleeping let alone socializing.
I graduated August 3, 2007 and felt liberated. I had about a month and a half of summer left and I was ready for some living.  The very next day, my roommates woke me saying they were going canooing the Provo River with some guys in the apartment a few buildings up and I was not missing out on anything. I jumped out of bed, threw on whatever was on my floor and a hat and headed out with my roomies.  We walked into an apartment that I'd never been in before, and sitting right there in an arm chair was my mystery guy I'd seen 6 months earlier, looking as handsome as ever. I froze, muttered some lame excuse to my roomies saying I'd forgot something and booked it home. I changed, did my hair, and threw on some makeup in about 7 minutes flat and ran back up there. I still didn't even know his name, let alone anything about him, except that he had had a girlfriend. She wasn't there to go canooing, but she could've been at work or something I thought, so I kept my distance carefully.  We all started jumping in vehicles and there wasn't enough room for all of us, so Buck offered to drive. He pulled his car up playing Jason Aldean on his radio, and I pounced on the opportunity. I looked at him through his rolled down window and said, "You listen to country music? I'm riding with you!" and confidently hopped into his passenger seat. I thought it was totally smooth! No body else wanted to ride with us, and I was happy yet nervous about being alone with him. So to keep from looking nervous I tried to keep it casual and just talk about music and my background of why I like country and what not and I thought it went really well. When it came time to get into canoos I did everything I could to be in the same one as him, while making look like a total coincedence. Worked again. I was totally patting myself on the back and getting really excited about this guy, but I kept getting this nagging reminder that he might have a girlfriend. I was in the middle of the canoo and totally sucked at paddling. I kept slapping the water without meaning to, but it was splashing Buck so he kept splashing me back and it was a total flirt game our whole trip down the river. Once we arrived where the river goes into Provo Lake, we all tipped the canoos and started swimming and playing. I don't know how it came up, but I remember telling everyone that I could impersonate a dolphin, and I did this shrill, ridiculous (but kinda impressive) dolphin impersonation and everyone laughed, including Buck. Seeing him laugh at me like that totally started my crushing on him hard. After canooing we all went back to the boys' apartment and watched a movie and again I did everything I could to sit by him, while "playing it cool".
So for the next couple of weeks our little group planned fun things to do every single day, including things like hikes, bike rides, movie nights, sushi nights, ultimate frisby (what single's ward doesn't play ultimate frisby?) and lunch dates and pool parties. It was so fun. I still couldn't tell for sure if Buck had a girlfriend so I did my best digging and learned that he and skinny girl had broken up a few months ago, but she occasionally kept showing up trying to get him back.  I remember I was casually dating a few different guys at the time, and whenever I was on dates I tried not to text because I think it's so rude. Well I was watching a movie with one of my dates and I got a text from an unknown number. I usually don't even look at my phone but for some reason I checked this text.  It was Buck, telling me that he had gotten my number from my roommate and asked me if I knew who sang a certain country song because he couldn't remember. My heart totally leapt when I saw he'd gotten my number. So I lied to my date and told him it was sister just asking a few questions and I just needed to text her for a few minutes. Well a few minutes turned into the rest of the night because I just wanted to keep texting him.  I eventually told my date I was tired and ready to go home because I was being so shamelessly rude.  I was really starting to crush on him, when I recieved devastating news; Buck was moving to Idaho.  He had gotten a construction job in Boise and was planning on moving in with his sister. Within like 2 weeks. He had already moved half of his stuff up there. I was so crushed. I would drop little hints to him, saying things like "We" (as in our group) were going to miss him, and "We" wished he wasn't moving and that "We" would have to make a trip to visit him. Whatever, I was totally bummed he was leaving.  About 4 days before he was supposed to leave for good, he recieved a phone call telling him his job in Idaho had fallen through and they couldn't hire him like they had said. He hung up and not even 5 minutes later he recieved another phone call from a guy offering him a framing job right there in Orem. I couldn't believe my luck! Or my blessings. Divine Intervention as Athena called it. He accepted the job, still in shock about everything that had happened so fast. I couldn't help it, I jumped into his arms and told him how happy I was that he was staying.  Meanwhile, in all this group hanging out, I had been so focused on Buck that I didn't see his roommate stepping in. We all were pretty close, so I didn't pick up on it.  One night there was a huge Meteor Shower over by Saratoga Springs and we all decided to go. Buck drove and I happened to ride in the back with his roommate, who was being super flirty and nice to me.  During the shower, we had laid down a bunch of blankets to watch it and I found his roomie trying to get cozy. I just kept looking around for Buck but he was being distant. On our way home I was way tired because it was late and I kept falling alseep. I woke up a little bit later totally laying on Roomie's shoulder and he had his arm around me.  Randomly, Buck pulled off into some little Suburb home area wanting to show us the homes he'd just finishing framing so we could see his work.  Walking through the house, Roomie grabbed and held my hand.  Buck looked at the two of us and then turned and left the house without saying a word, leaving us behind and I realized that it bothered him. It bugged him! Score, he liked me! I was so stoked that I totally didn't see Roomie come in for a kiss. Talk about not graceful as he got a mouth full of my cheek and hair.  I told him that we needed to leave and ran off and left Roomie standing in the house, offering to walk me to the car.  I had to get to Buck and see what damage had been done. He was intereseted, I had to let him know that I was too!  He wouldn't look at me the rest of the ride and I was worried I had blown it.
It was on now. I totally went after him. I found out later that Buck approached Roomie and asked what his intentions were, because he wanted to date me but didn't want to step on any toes. Roomie had enough sense to realize I was into Buck and not him, so he gave him the go-ahead and backed down.  Thus, Buck asked me on our first date.  I was at work and didn't get off until 5 PM.  He texted me and asked me when my lunch break was.  I told him and he was there waiting for me to pick me up in the front of the ER. He took me to Panda Express, because we had a measly half hour. It was just us two, and he paid. I thought it was totally great. He took me back to work and within a few minutes he was texting me, thanking me for spending my lunch with him, and I remember he sent a text that said, "You looked really nice today." I was giddy. Literally giddy. I couldn't focus on my work or stop smiling. I was
Things really picked up from here and we became close really fast.  We singled off from the group and started going on dates just the two of us. We were becoming exclusive, and every night at the end of our date, I would wait for him to kiss me. In fact, I was basically puckering trying to get him to kiss me and he wouldn't! It was so frustrating. One night I came home and my bed and floor were covered in chocolate kisses, and there was a piece of paper with a CD on my bed. The piece of paper said, "Now that I've kissed the ground you walk on, will you listen to this CD?" I immediately put it in and Bruce Channel started singing, "Hey, hey baby...I wanna know, will you be my girl?" I ran right up to his apartment totally barefoot and jumped on him telling him I would totally be his girl.  So we were officially exclusive, and he still hadn't kissed me! I'd had enough. For my 22nd birthday, Sept. 9th, he threw me the most awesome surprise birthday party. He had blown me off earlier in the day and I was totally sulking in my apartment, upset that my new boyfriend wasn't even with me on my birthday. Finally, he called saying he was coming to get me but we had to run back to his apartment real quick. I walked in to all our friends yelling surprise. That night we were back in my apartment on our couch watching a movie. I was laying against him and wanted a kiss more that anything for my birthday.  I pretented that I didn't hear what they had said on the TV and turn to face him staight on. I could feel him try to move backwards away from me, but his head was against the couch so he had no where to go.  So I closed in about an inch away from him and just kept talking until he finally kissed me! It was totally worth the wait and the best part of my birthday.   I was having car problems and had to keep taking it to get fixed, so Buck totally gave me his car. I would take him to work, then go to work myself, and then pick him up from work, and visa versa.  I had to work graveyards sometimes so he would come and pick me up at 5 AM sometimes without a complaint.  I knew I wanted to marry him by this point but didn't say anything about it because I didn't want to scare him.  One night we had been hanging out and watching a movie.  When it was over, he started asking me little questions about diamonds and rings, and what I liked and didn't like. We kept talking for hours and finally both confessed that we both had been wanting to marry each other, but didn't want to scare the other. I couldn't believe we were discussing marriage! Ha he pulled his phone out and we scrolled through his calendar and totally picked a date right then and there. The next morning, as he was leaving for work, he came down to tell me goodbye like he did every morning, and as he kissed me goodbye I grabbed him and said, "Wait! We're totally forgetting a step." Oblivious, he said, "What?" and I said, "I love you." Ha we hadn't even told each other we loved each other yet! He told me he loved me too and hugged me again before running off.
We went and looked at rings the very next day.  He took me home for Thanksgiving to meet his family for the first time, and proposed to me while there. I thought the ring was still being made but he surprised me, having his nieces and nephews hold a giant sign asking, "Annalee, would you please marry Uncle Buck?" in front of ton of tourists at Crater Lake in Oregon. I said yes of course :)
We had a grueling 4 1/2 month engagement that I didn't tolerate well due to being hormonally overdosed on birth control.  I'm lucky he still married the crazy, emotional basket-case that was me.
We were finally married in April, so yes, pretty fast from start to finish but almost 5 years and 1 1/2 kids later we're still going strong!  So there it is. How we came to be. People will ask me how we met and I like to tell them through eHarmony, or that our Parole Officers set us up or something crazy like that just to see what they say. Truth is we have hardly anything in common and want to light each other on fire sometimes but we love each other and I couldn't imagine sharing the crazy with anyone else. He had to work today so we're celebrating "our" Valentine's Day this weekend, so stay tuned for pictures.