How We Met
Amanda's Version:
The Meeting
It was St. Patrick's Day, 2006. It's tradition that Daniel and his friends rent out a hotel room for St. Patrick's Day to celebrate. My college roommate, at the time, went to the party and I was her driver home. When I came to pick her up, I called her from the parking lot to tell her I was here. She insisted I come up and meet this guy she had met. He was wearing a Green Lantern shirt and they had been talking comics. She mentioned I love Nightcrawler and he wanted to meet the girl who liked NightCrawler. So up I went and met him and talked for about 2 minutes about Superman and comics while my roommate got ready to go and that was that. Nothing exciting.
Later
Over the next few months, we saw each other once or twice in large group settings with mutual friends. I remember he was wearing Boondock Saint's tshirt and I had complimented him on it. My college roommate mentioned he was getting a tattoo, Superman related, of course. I whispered to her, "How am I supposed to know he likes Superman?" Of course I had forgotten him completely. He drew out his tattoo for me and his friends' mouths dropped when I recognized and understood what it was (The Kryptonian symbol for Hope). Apparently there were many comments from his friends about how here was the perfect girl for him. Ha.
First Date
It was late in August when I decided I need to go on a date. I had never really been on "just a date" before and wanted to give it a shot. I asked Daniel out and clearly expressed that it was just for fun, no strings attached, no romance, just friends going out on a date. Well, clearly, that did not turn out as planned.
Daniel and I had an excellent first date. First, we went to the Fargo Zoo. We saw all the animals and then crawled up on a little hill, sat and talked and talked and talked and talked. We figured it was about time to leave so we headed to a small town in Minnesota for Potato Days. That was about to wrap up, so we went to the park where they were having a car show. We impressed each other with fake knowledge of cars, swung on the swings, climbed the jungle gym, laid down in the grass and watched the clouds form into funny-shapped items but mostly we talked and talked and talked and talked. We then watched the LONGEST PARADE EVER. It was several hours long. Anyway, then we went out to eat at Pita Pit (and talked and talked and talked). We discovered we both had a love for the Beatles so we scoured the rental store for Help! but couldn't find it. We settled on A Hard Day's Night back at his place and ended up talking even more afterwards. It was a lot of talking (really) in which we discovered how much we had in common: interests, values, personality traits. It only took a few days and we were officially dating.
And now we're engaged and that's why you're here. Yey!