Reminiscing---How I met my dear Husband...

To the left my friend Beth, K.T., me, and Darcy.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go out to dinner with Beth, an old College Friend of mine and two other friends of hers. When I say old College friend I mean OLD---she turned 30 on Saturday! Just kidding, Beth, I will only tease you until I turn "you know what" in May!! :) She is getting ready to jump on a plane Thursday to fly to Minnesota to meet a man she met off an internet dating site. Stay Safe & Good luck!!! It brought to mind how I met my happy, handsome, mystery internet man--THE_SAYNT--on her computer...

It was winter 1996, I was attending Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, commuting from Plainville twice a week. I was hanging out with some friends of mine from Band, Jackie and Meredith. We hung out at times in Meredith's apartment and there I met Beth, who is still a very good friend of mine today. Meredith really loved to lose herself on the internet (Beth's computer!) chatting with people all over the world. She chatted with some interesting people and we often read over her shoulder and laughed at some of the people she was chatting with. There was one night in particular when Jackie, Beth and I were getting ready to go out and Meredith called me over to the computer. She wanted me to talk to some "nice guy" on the computer! I had never really talked to anyone on there before. It was some college resort chatline type of thing--well anyways I remember his name--THE_SAYNT and I remember how he would type with smiley faces after almost everything he wrote and he liked to go dancing and he was almost done Engineering school in Milwaukee. :) I didn't really think anything of it because well I was casually dating a sweet trumpet player from band. Somehow (probably from Meredith) THE_SAYNT got my e-mail address and he e-mailed me a few times, since I never really went on this Resort thing to chat. I would write back to him sometimes but I never thought anything of it and I wrote very cauciously spelling my name differently so he wouldn't be able to "track me down." There were wackos out there! :)

In December 1997 THE_SAYNT graduated from Milwaukee School of Engineering and moving back home to Maine and I was transfering to Utah State University in Logan, Utah like lots of other mormon girls my age looking for Prince Charming. Little did I know, I really didn't have to look too far...Finally when he was graduating I gave him my phone number and he--Shaun-- called me on Christmas Eve 1997. We talked for a little while before he was heading off to Christmas Eve Mass with his family. I don't remember much about our conversation except he was looking for work now that he graduated and that I was moving to Utah to find Prince Charming. I thought that would be it. My time in Utah was difficult to say the least. I realllllllly hated it! I totally missed my family, friends and New England! In February of 1998 my Pepe passed away and I flew home to be with my family. I think it was a little after that that I got a message on my answering machine from a Shaun from Virginia. Hmmm....Shaun from Virginia?? I didn't know a Shaun from Virginia...Come to find out it was Shaun from Maine--he had moved to the Washington, DC/Virginia area for his job and Valerie had given him my phone number in Utah! I called him and we talked a lot while I was there. I'm not sure how I felt about him at the time, but I would complain about guys and he was always there to listen. By the time I was due home in June he probably knew everything about me and what I was looking for in a guy and what I wasn't! My dad flew out to Utah just before Father's Day weekend and we drove home.

On Father's 1998 Shaun and I made plans to meet in person for the very first time. He was driving home from Maine to Virginia and was going to make a stop in Plainville at my home to meet me. It was crazy!! He came to the door and I remember Valerie saying, "Shaun's here--He drives a Grandpa car!" He sort of did--an old buick, really made out of metal, not plastic like my Hyundai Accent! I remember seeing him for the first time...it was strange I guess you could say seeing someone that you never saw before, but you KNOW him and he's not a stranger! I don't know it's hard to explain. He stayed a long time, visiting with me and having pizza with my family. It was nice...at that moment my mom knew that I liked him and I guess I knew it too. After that we talked almost every night on the phone. We tried to see each other at least once a month. He'd drive up here to Plainville or I'd fly down to Washington, DC/Virgina. Long distance is tough but it can work.

At some point--May 1999, his construction management job in Virginia was coming to an end and the branch was closing and he was going to have to transfer to either Dallas, Texas or Atlanta, Georgia. The company thought he was single and would just go. One weekend I remember distinctly, Shaun went down to Atlanta to try to find a place for him to live. I wasn't too keen on the Atlanta thing. For one it was a little far from Connecticut and I was a little disappointed because I totally LOVED the DC/Virginia area where he was living. While he was there I prayed that he wouldn't like Atlanta. My prayers were answered as the city was getting hit with tornados. He had never experienced this before and wasn't really a big fan. He called me and said he was coming home. He quit his job and moved back to New England. He was supposed to be going home to Maine, but he really didn't. He came to CT, stayed with my parents, found a job here in Farmington, got an apartment and then he proposed to me on December 19, 1999 and we were married on April 15, 2000.

Thanks Meredith for chatting online and thanks Beth for letting her use your computer to chat online! At the time we never thought she was online for a reason! :) If she wasn't online who knows if I would have ever met my best friend, my companion, my love...Shaun--THE_SAYNT!

:)SMILE:)