Me and the Bride-I serioulsy adore this girl!! {32 weeks pregnant}
In Sarah’s words, “The First “I Love You”
“One of my favorite stories of Eric and I is the first time we said “I love you”. The story starts after a full spring and summer of spending, quite literally, every day together. We had been bike-riding around town, went on middle-of-the-night hikes to accomadate our crazy graveyard schedule, made several trips to the hummane society and to Costco, and even visited my family in Washington for our annual island camping trip at Priest Lake (my favorite place). To end the summer, we went on a backpacking trip to Hava Supai Indian Reservation in Arizona; it was my first official backpacking trip. The whole trip was incredible and beautiful. We met up with a couple other friends there, set up camp and went on the most scenic hikes each day. One night, we went down to the edge of moony falls, my favorite falls there. The moon was so full that the whole area was brightened and you could see the bats flying around the falls. We talked for probably hours on that ledge. I had known that I wanted to say “I love you” for at least a few weeks. Like teenagers, we had been saying “I really really like you” for too long. haha. Eric swears to this day that he didn’t say it becuase I was such a flight risk with any kind of comitment. In his defense, the conversation regarding being an official couple that took place severeal months after we started dating was nearly an ending point for us. So he did have some ground to stand on 🙂 Anyways that night, after a couple of hours, I mustered up the courage and said “I love you”, which was actually quite a bit more difficult that I had thought it would be. He just looked at me for at least a minute and then said “are you sure?” I was like “I think, or at least thought so”. Haha. He did respond likewise and it became a very memorable night for both of us.
But that is not the end of this story. At the end of our trip, we hiked the 10+ miles through the night back to our car, where we managed to lock our keys in the trunk of the car. With the 1% battery life left on my phone we called roadside assistance for help. After they responded that they had no idea where we were, my phone died and we were kind of out of luck. We were asking to borrow peoples car charges as they emerged from the canyon without much success. Then a short time later a tow truck appeared and asked if someone needed to be towed. We were so excited that they had found a way to send someone when they told us they couldn’t. They then dragged my brand new car onto the back of the tow truck and we drove the 350 miles to Flagstaff, AZ where we were hoping the Subaru dealership would be able to get into my trunk. After the long journey we discovered that they also could not get into the car and several days were required to make a new laser-cut key. Next this you know, I am crying on the phone with my dad while sitting on the curb of the grocery store parking lot. We ended up just breaking the glove box with a screw-driver to get into the trunk. At this point we had not slept in over 24 hours or showered in four days. We went to a truck stop and used their showers then ate some food and started the long drive home in order to make it to our night shifts THAT evening. It was an incredibly long day. This trip became so much more memorable than I originally thought. Not only was it a big step for us with our relationship, but the after-events were very eye-opening. We were able to get through a difficult challenge together without being upset or arguing. There was no blaming, no silent treatment, just two people working through an obstacle and making a great memory…one that remains one of my favorites.”