Surprise

I'm in Florida right now, but I scheduled this to post because I really wanted to share it with you. On Valentine's Day weekend, I was thinking about previous Valentine's Days and all the sweet things Martin has done for me.

The year that Martin and I started dating, I was still a sophomore in college, but Martin was done with college and working for his dad on the home farm. Therefore, we rarely saw each other. I was incredibly involved in different organizations at school and had pretty packed weekends with activities so I didn't have the opportunity to go home many weekends and Martin was working all the time so visits were very difficult for him.

This particular year, Valentine's Day was on a Tuesday. Not a very fun day for a holiday. I had basically resigned myself to the fact that I would not be spending what I considered my first real Valentine's Day with my first love that year. So, Tuesday rolled around and our mutual friend, Katie Klotzbach (Katie Panek at the time) calls me up and asks me if I would like to come over and have dinner with her and Ryan since I would not be able to spend the day with Martin.

For some reason, it did not strike me as odd at all that I was being invited over to dinner with a couple on Valentine's Day. The words third wheel never even ventured into my head. But, that kind of stuff never really phased me.

Sidenote: in high school my best friend, Caton, was starting to see a new guy, Mike. I used to always find them in the hall and somehow phenangle myself in between the two - not because I didn't want them to be together, but because it was the best position to tell my story so all could hear. Caton had to pull me aside one day and politely ask my to please stop doing that.

So, I quickly agreed to have dinner with Katie and Ryan because, what could be better than spending Valentine's Day with a couple?? If Martin had been dating anyone else, this plan never would have worked - but apparently even back then he knew how blissfully ignorant I was.

Great, we'll come pick you up. I'll call you when we get to your door - Katie said

20 to 40 minutes later. I really have no idea, I get a call from Katie. Hey, we're down here. Come out.

As I walk down the stairs of my dorm to meet Katie, out of the corner of my eye through the window I notice a truck parked in the lot that looks curiously like Martin's. Hmm. That's weird. Someone at Cornell has a truck that looks like Martin's farm truck. I'm a little slow on the pickup.

I step out of my dorm and standing in front of the truck that looks curiously like Martin's is Martin himself with a giant vase full of roses and babies breath. He had come up just for the night to surprise me. We had dinner and played spoons with Katie and Ryan and then Martin left at 4:00 AM the next morning. Because he is crazy and crazy in love with me. :-)

I think that might be the moment I knew I was going to marry him.