Happy Valentines Day: Boarding for Love

An evening from High School with us hanging
 out with friends. ThatsJamie in the
 middle in red and me on the top right, in
a headlock I guess. I feel the need
to explain that these cups aren't
for some elaborate drinking game. I don't drink.
I don't think anyone in this picture does.
We're just building pyramids with old plastic cups,
so no worries ok?

Happy Valentines one and all. Congrats those who are lucky enough to be with their special someone, and to those who are not, you know, don't despair, it's only got to work out once.

I wanted to share a story today, about how board sports has brought love to my life. Not longboarding, and not the charitable helping others type of love. The story is about snowboarding, and friendship/romantic love.

I love boarding, and snowboarding is one of my favorites. I actually don't know which one I love best, longboarding, or snowboarding. Back in high school when I was 16 or 17 I got a pass to Park City for Christmas. I would go all the time with my family. I loved it. One Saturday I woke up and really wanted to go boarding, but no one wanted to go with me. My brother was gone and my parents were busy. I decided to call a friend, but who to call?

I looked through my phone and stopped at the name of Jamie Wheeler, the cute girl I met running on the Cross Country team together. We loved to talk at school, but never got together outside of school. I thought to call her, but I was so nervous! I liked her, but being the silly boy I was I didn't want her to know that. What if she thought I was weird?

After staring at my phone for 15 minutes, trying to become brave enough to press the call button....I did it...and then I pushed the end call button and dropped my phone. 15 minutes later I did it again and followed through with the phone call. It rang.....my heart pounded.....it rang again.....I prayed she wouldn't answer, then I would have to say something....it rang, half a ring, and then..."Hello?" She answered.

High School Graduation

I invited her to go boarding with me and told her that nobody could go with me. I said I had asked my family and called all my friends, Jeff, and Zach, and Bryan, but nobody could go. This was all a lie, but I didn't want her to know she was my first choice, my silly little teenage self thought that this seemed to forward or desperate. So I stupidly made her feel like my last resort (I have since confessed this lie to her). She was nice enough to say yes, or just wanted a free ride to Park City and she came along. This sparked a tradition and we went almost every single week. Our friendship grew from our many drives and days on the slopes. We grew incredibly close and began to hang out all the time.

We even arranged our class schedules to match up. We had American Heritage together. We had English class, where Ms. Riley wouldn't let us sit next to each other (she has no idea the happiness she almost averted!), there was sculpting class and our commercial art class where we were the torment of our teacher, Mr. Feller.

Time passed and, sadly, we grew apart, staying friends but not really hanging out. I dated another girl, I left the country for a few years. While I was in Romania we wrote a couple letters like friends do. When I got back to the States, things didn't work out with the other girl. I went to BYU and met Jamie again. We started hanging out all the time, but I was still to scared to tell her how I felt. Instead I tried to get her to date all my roommates. Everyone saw how we felt except for us. Eventually we wizened up and started dating December 2011.

So happy after an evening together on the slopes

Jamie always wanted to go to Jerusalem and that summer she had the chance to have a study abroad in the Middle East. She left and we took a dating hiatus. I thought she would forget me and I tried to forget her. I don't think I realized how depressed I was that she was gone, until she came back in August. After two months I convinced her to date me again! December 1, 2012 rolled around and I convinced her to marry me.

When I asked Jamie's parents if I could marry their daughter, her mom told me something. She said that Jamie will never admit to it, ever, but she has always liked me since High School. I tease Jamie sometimes and tell people she has always loved me since she knew me. She smiles and rolls her eyes, but....she never denies it....and that makes me happy.

The other day Jamie took me snowboarding at Sundance, she's so nice, and it made me remember the good old High School days when we went every week. We would laugh, snowboard, talk, and just enjoy being with each other. I'm so happy I was brave enough to call her so many years ago, and I'm so grateful she was kind enough to agree to spend the day with me.

Started off snowboarding....

...and here we are. Happy Valentines Day!!