The story of how we met starts out with our mutual love of music. My freshman year I was playing cymbals for the marching band and Tyler was playing the quads. We were getting ready to perform for halftime when I was forced to play the ginormous cymbals instead of my usual ones. Tyler was waiting to march on the field when he leaned over and said, “Are you sure you can handle those?” with a smile. I don’t recall what smart comment I said back to him, but we both laughed. This is when we met, but that’s not when we started dating.

We were properly introduced by our mutual friend, Kyle Olson. Kyle and Tyler have been friends since middle school.  Kyle played my father in the musical that year and we became good friends. We spent most of our rehearsals laughing instead of doing what we were supposed to be doing. Slowly, I became inducted into their group of friends. One night when I was hanging out with Kyle, Tyler walked passed.  Kyle stopped Tyler and introduced us. We started talking and realized that we had a lot in common, but most importantly we had the ability to make each other laugh. Tyler and I were friends for about a year and a half before we started dating.

Now there is a little argument about what our actual first date was. I consider our first date being Tyler taking me out for my 16^th birthday to IHOP and a movie. He however states that our first date occurred 3 months after that when we went out for Chinese and a movie. His idea of our first date occurred after we spent my Little Women cast party outside all night talking and laughing. The next week he asked me if I maybe wanted to go out some time. As you can probably guess, I agreed and that is when our lives together began.

Despite our arguing over what our actual first date was, we do agree that we have spent our lives together with a large amount of laughter and love. It is very rare in this world that you find someone that is truly your other half at such an early age. I cannot imagine my world without him and I wish that our children can find someone in this crazy world that fills their heart with as much love as Tyler has for me.