I had two rules for the semester I found my husband.
1. I wasn't going to date anyone in my ward
2. I wasn't going to date anyone in my apartment complex.
Well those rules flew out the window when I saw this one boy (T.O.B.) walking past my kitchen window and into his apartment directly across from mine. I immediately was in love. I couldn't focus on anything until I found out who he was. I asked my roommates for details and they told me his name was Nick Baker. Hmmm, I thought, Andrea Baker. That sounds nice.
I began my plan to get that one boy to ask me out. I sat outside my apartment everyday thinking about T.O.B. doing homework to try and get some results.
After what seemed like weeks and weeks (it was probably a couple of days) T.O.B. came out of his apartment and talked to me. It was casual and short, but oh so comfortable. He ate some of my pringles, I smiled cute, and he left. The next couple of days I lived for every time I saw him. I would purposely come home during one of my hour breaks form school so I could pass him on his way to campus. I would time it so that I would run into him in the morning as we both left for work. Stalkerish? Well it worked didn’t it. It worked especially well one morning when we walked down the stairs together and chatted before he headed to his car and I started walking to work. As I was walking down the street a car pulled up beside me and I knew that it was him. He drove me to work and we talked some more. I was smiling from ear to ear the entire day. That same week I was sitting on my porch swing when he came over and we talked and played games and he finally asked me out.
We went to get gelato on Center Street. It was simple and perfect. I was falling already. The next couple of days were torture as I waited for things to speed up. But when they did we dated like there was no tomorrow. Our days were filled with Planet Earth parties, smoothies, long walks and talks, searching for kittens, bike rides, dollar movies, star gazing, grilling, the opera, musicals, porch swings, forts and snuggles. We held hands watching Planet Earth, we first kissed on a starry night on the rocks by Utah Lake, and we first said I love you on a bridge.
He came to visit my family and they loved him. We went to Mexico and he spoke Spanish and we fell more and more in love.
The porch swing that I used to sit on alone thinking about him became our porch swing. We would talk for hours on that swing. One night on my doorstep he mentioned buying me a puppy for a distant birthday. I said, “Where would I keep this puppy?” and his response was, “Well by then we’ll be married, so at our house.” My heart skipped a beat.
We went to Oregon to visit his family. And He proposed on Valentine’s Day in Oregon at Multnomah Falls.
I said yes (obviously) and we got married in the Mesa Temple on April 24, 2009.
And so that one boy became my best friend and husband.
