The Story of Us Part IV

If you haven't read Parts I, II, or III of this love story, I recommend you do that first so you can know what the heck I'm talking about.  Just go to the label called "The Story of Us."

Two days after we went tubing, I developed the worst sun burn I've ever had in my entire life.  In fact, I haven't really ever burned since.  I rarely wear sunscreen because I have my skin is naturally a little bit darker (it's the Boricua (translation: Puerto Rican) in me).  But, that time, I burned and I burned bad.  My entire back started peeling.  So when I saw Evan on line, I immediately IM'd him and the conversation went something like this:

Cristina: Evan, you jerk!
Evan: what did I do?
Cristina: because of your invitation to the river, I burned so badly! I'm peeling!  It sucks!
Evan: haha.  Oh Cristina, I love you.  You are the most beautiful woman in the world.  I want you to have my babies!

Ok ok...maybe I exaggerated that a tad bit huh?  In all seriousness, that night Evan and I chatted online for over 3 hours.  Somehow, we managed to talk about everything: politics, religion, our hobbies, and our families.  It was the first serious conversation we had ever managed to have with each other and mid way through I think we both realized "holy crap...why haven't we been dating all this time?"

When we finally had to say good bye for the night Evan typed to me that he thought completely differently of me than before the conversation.  I asked him if this opinion change was for the better or made things worse and he immediately said "much better."  The next night, I got online again hoping and praying Evan would be online too.  Before I could even see if his name appeared on the screen he IM'd me a big "Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!"  It seems like somebody had been waiting to talk with me all day.  Since that first conversation, we have never gone a day without speaking in some way.

A few nights later we went to a pool party at someone's house.  Evan picked Kourtney (one of my best friends ever) and I up and took us to the party.  While at the party, I definitely played hard to get, but wherever I went Evan would be right at my side.  Now mind you, up to this point, we hadn't even held hands.  I was in the pool and Evan came up beside me and ever so gently placed his hand on my lower back.  It was like my entire body went numb.  I had never felt like that when somebody touched me.  I was hooked.  Utterly and completely hooked.

When the party was over, he dropped Kourtney off at her house and then dropped me off.  I was so nervous.  This could be it...the moment of the first kiss!  I prepped my lips by biting on them so they would look nice and red, I ran my tongue over them so they'd look shiny and appealing.  He walked me to the door, said good night, and turned around.   And ... that was that.  Evan told me later that he sat in his car afterwards beating himself up for not having kissed me.  He said he just got too darn nervous.

The next day Evan decided to come visit me at the kitchen store where I used to work over the summer.  I decided he had missed his chance to give the first kiss.  I was going for it!  I was going to kiss him!  When he came in to the store, I took his hand and walked him to the back of the store (there was a little storage room).  As we were walking back, Evan asked me "What are we going back here for?"  Oh man...men are freaking clueless!  I was trying to put some moves on him and he had no earthly idea! 

I quickly turned around and gave him a kiss.  His hands were shaking.  It was a short, sweet, and gentle and amazing first kiss.  When we finished our kiss Evan looked at me and said "oooh...that's why we were coming back here."  HAHA.  Just so you know, I didn't leave the store completely unattended.  There were two of us working and she was watching the front for the two seconds of the kiss.  Looking back on it, I was the worlds worst worker huh?  Fortunately that kiss solidified and molded what would be the most important aspect of my life. On June 7, 2002, I kissed the man I ended up marrying. Probably the best decision I've ever made.

I think Evan finally got some courage after this and leaned in to give me a second kiss.  As we're leaning in, lips puckered, eyes closing we heard a huge knock at the door.  UPS guy!  You have got to be kidding me.  It's ok...we've made up for it with millions of kisses after that. 

And there you have it.  After that kiss, we were always "Cristina and Evan."  He met my family soon thereafter and immediately my family loved him.  I went over to his house really soon too.  His Mom told me the night that we got engaged that Evan told her not too much longer after that first kiss that I was the one for him.  And deep in my heart, I knew it really soon too.  Here is the first picture that anyone ever took of us together.  Evan came to my parents lakehouse on quite a few occasions that summer and my parents loved having such a good helper, eater, and swimmer around the house.  My Mom snapped this shot of us.  I have it in a frame in our house so that we always remember how long our love has lasted and all that it has endured.

When you know, you just know...even when you're 17.

I love you Evan. 

The Story of Us Part III

If you haven't read part I and part II of our love story, I recommend you do that first to keep up...

Now, let's see, where did we leave off?

Ah, yes, one fine day in Economics class (a class I didn't/ don't really care for), it started raining.  No, take that back, it started pouring.  The thunder was loud as could be too.  I DO NOT LIKE THUNDER.  I still to this day get freaked out by it.  So, this one day in March the thunder rang out loud as could be and I let out a little yell.  It was probably the cutest noise that Evan had ever heard, because the next thing he did is what really solidified, in my mind, that this mindless flirting might have actually meant something.

Now, I warn you, before I go on to what happened, you have to promise that you won't make too much fun of me for ending up with this guy. . . this part of the story gets incredibly incredibly  nerdy.  After I yelped because of the thunder, Evan asked me for my calculator.  He was messing with it for a little while and I wondered what the heck he was doing.  When he handed it back to me, I saw that he had set the calculator to read as follows...

Cristina is awesome and really pretty.  Cristina is awesome and really pretty.  Cristina is awesome and really pretty.  Cristina is awesome and really pretty.  Cristina is awesome and really pretty.  

Yep, it was the sweetest most nerdy thing anyone had ever done for me.  I got red as a tomato and looked at him and said thanks.  And he just smiled.  I kept that program on my calculator for weeks and looked at it all the time.  But one day when A-hole (my ex) needed to borrow my calculator, I deleted the program.  This told me I had feelings for Evan too.  If I was trying to hide something from A-hole, that meant there was something TO hide.

Fast forward to April.  A-hole's and I relationship was crappy as ever.  One day, I had a friend come over and tell me that he was cheating on me.  Honestly, I wasn't really surprised.  I called A-hole, called him an A-hole and a million other things, and that was that.  I cried for one day and then really wasn't that upset. 

The evening that we broke up, I was laying down with my Dad having a pity party and he asked me, "Hey, what about that guy that plays water polo?  You never know Cristina!"  Holy crap...how did my dad know?  How did my dad know that would be the guy I would end up marrying?

That weekend my Mom took me shopping (a tradition for whenever I ended a relationship).  You see, my Mom has this theory that you should look great after a relationship ends.  Kinda a "eat your heart out" thing.  So, we went shopping and I was really excited to look good....for EVAN! : )  I went up to him first thing that morning and kneeled down and told him "A-hole and I broke up.  Just so you know."

He seemed completely unphased.  I was so disappointed.  My cute outfits hadn't done the trick!  Darn it!

Two days later, Evan asked me to go tubing with him and some friends.  I knew it!  I invited a friend along that had a crush on Evan, but then again who didn't? Throughout the year, I had quite a few girls ask me if they could date Evan.  Evan was a really sought after guy.  He's smart, looked older (which of course, was really sexy to a highschool girl), had washboard abs, and was the captain of his waterpolo and swim team.  What else could a girl want? ; )

Before we went tubing, I went to Target and bought a new swimsuit.  It was a bikini that ... I gotta admit, looked pretty darn good on me.  I started feeling bad because my friend had a crush on him and here I was trying to look good for him.  But, it was just innocent flirting right?  What did it matter?

We went tubing that weekend and had a great time.  Evan later told me that when he saw me in that bikini, he thought I looked amazing.  HA!  Again, my cute outfits were doing the trick!  Although there were about 15 people there, Evan did a great job and stayed by my side the whole time since I didn't really know anybody else there (the crowd was his swim team.  I was a student council girl myself). 

At the river, I didn't put sun screen on and soaked up the rays.  I thought we had an amazing time and went home content as can be.

BUT, two days later, I was on my computer and saw Evan was online (AIM chat...yeah...remember when people used to do that?).  I immediately wrote him a message "YOU JERK!" 

Why had this guy become a jerk in my eyes?  How in the world did we end up getting together?  You'll have to stay tuned AGAIN for another installment...but tomorrow, I promise, we'll get to a special special moment: the first kiss.

The Story of Us Part II

If you didn't read "The Story of Us Part I," I recommend you read that first so you can follow along with this love story.

Last I left off, I was thinking Evan was a jerk for embarrassing me in front of my classmates and he was thinking I was an airhead for just chatting with my friends instead of paying attention to the ridiculously interesting course that is Chemistry.

When junior year started, Evan and I had a bunch of classes together: Physics, Economics, Lunch Period, and English.  So basically, we were seeing each other over half of the day.  In high school, the way that you sit the first day of class ends up being your assigned seats.  Little did we know, we were about to form our future just by this one simple thought that Evan had to himself as he walked in to Physics class, "hey, I remember that girl, I'll go sit in front of her."

(translation: HEY...there's a girl for me to make fun of even more...let me go sit in front of her)

The rest of that first day, we just kept sitting next to each other.  We didn't really talk to each other much that first day.  I think it was just a pattern we established.  

As the year went on, we became really great friends.  I started realizing that I looked forward to those class periods, even Physics for peets sake!  Now mind you, I was in a relationship with a guy we'll call A-hole (trust me, he deserves that nickname), so Evan and I were just that: friends.  Evan was in a relationship with a girl we'll call Coach (she was also a swimmer and often liked to tell Evan what to do...if you know Evan, you'll realize that this relationship obviously didn't last long). 

BUT, even though we were both in relationships...a little flirting never hurt anyone right?  Throughout the year, we got closer and closer and spoke more and more throughout the day.  Evan was always reading in class.  He never read the textbooks of course.  He just always had his nose in a book and personally, I thought this was cute, nerdy, and hilarious, so I tried my best to tease him whenever he was reading.  I would poke him in the back and ask him "hey, whatcha doin?" or I would take my finger and run over the letters on the back of his shirt just to distract him enough.  Sometimes, I would run my fingers through his hair (yeah yeah...I realize that maybe since I had a boyfriend this wasn't appropriate, oops).  Evan's hair used to feel like straw.  Since he swam 4 hours a day, his hair had no life to it.  So, I thought it was really fun to run my fingers through it.  He later admitted to me that he always liked when I did that...he still does. 

Really though, we were just friends.  On Valentine's of Junior year, I was walking around with flowers that A-hole had given me and I asked Evan what he was going to give Coach.  He looked at me with this bewildered look and said: "Should I get her something?"  Are you serious dude??  So, we walked through how Evan would buy her flowers and give them to her at swim practice.  Evan broke up with Coach shortly after that.  Maybe he realized that something was not quite right if he didn't even think of giving her flowers on Valentine's.  It's hard to believe that this is the same guy that brought me a huge bouquet of flowers after I got my first speeding ticket because I had had a bad day.

Throughout the year, we started slightly, maybe becoming more than just friends.  I even woke up one morning at 8 a.m. on a Saturday just go to watch one of his water polo games.  Mind you, I never told A-hole that I was doing that...he would have been pissed.  You see, A-hole started noticing that something fishy was going on between Evan and I.  He often told me that I shouldn't be with Evan so much or that he heard through the grapevine that we were always talking in class.  A-hole started showing up after every class to walk me down the halls and to establish his territory.  Evan later told me that this always bothered him...that A-hole treated me as though I was his property.  Little did that A-hole know...my heart was starting to wander off towards Evan.

You know how I said I was always teasing him while he read those dorky books?  Well, all that prodding and annoying him seemed to have an effect.  I got really sick my junior year of high school and stayed home for a few days.  Evan said that that's when he started realizing he might like me a little.  He said that by the second day he turned around to see if I was there.  He didn't like that he was reading so many chapters in all his class periods.  He wanted to be interrupted.  He missed my company and while I was sick, I missed annoying him.

Then...one sweet and fine day in Economics...

The Story of Us Part I

One of my best friends in the whole wide world posted something on her blog last week...a story of her and her husband.  As I read through it, I got all teary-eyed.  I've known them pretty much since they met so I had seen all that she spoke of: how they grew more in love every day, how they've never loved each other more, how they've been through so many amazing things together, and how fortunate they feel to have each other.  After reading this, I felt compelled to write our own love story. I could relate to all the sentiments that she described.

Evan and I really are like two peas in a pod.  We have such a great marriage and friendship.  I can be myself around him.  In fact, sometimes I can be myself around him more than I am when I'm all alone (if that makes any sense)!  And now, with Liliana here, our love has increased exponentially.  We have had so much fun being parents, but we're still making sure to have "us" time.  We watch 30 minutes of TV every night before we go to bed.  Liliana gets a feeding around 1:30 in the morning usually, so this means that we're often watching television at 2, but it's worth it.  It's OUR time together and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

I did post about our married life on our 3 year wedding anniversary, so I'll try my best to not be repetitive.  But...let's start from the beginning shall we?  I think I'm going to have to do this post in quite a few parts because it'll be really long, sorry. I'm a long-winded person, what can I say?  But, it's our story together and I'm so excited to write it...so cut me a little slack. : )

It all started in August of 1999.   I had been at Keystone (a small private school in San Antonio) for 9 years.  I begged my parents to let me go to a public school.  I wanted to meet more people, see more things...and yes, when I said "things," I meant boys.  There were about 10 guys in my class at  Keystone.  I, quite frankly, had grown sick of seeing the same ones every day!  So, my parents finally gave in with the condition that I "only enroll in honors courses."  Done and done!  I walked in to my history class, first period, and sat down.  The boy that sat next to me was wearing a red polo and some Sambas and I immediately thanked god because the boys in public school were freakin' hot...the boy's name?  Evan Lacefield.

Soon, I became friends with other people in the classroom and moved to another area, so Evan and I didn't even speak until sophomore year of high school.  Our experiences together weren't really in Evan's favor.  The first time we ever spoke went like this:

We were in Chemistry class and quite frankly, I wasn't paying attention.  See, I had gone to the Science Fair and done rather well.  Our teacher, as a reward, gave me 20 extra points on every exam...soo...why in the world would I pay attention in class?  I had a for sure A in there! Our teacher, Mr. Fuller, started getting annoyed by my chatting with friends (he called the three of us the Bermuda Triangle).

Mr. Fuller: "Hey Cristina, Where's the Bermuda Triangle?"
Cristina: (completely unaware of what the heck he just said): Huh?
Evan: (turns around and seems so sweet and whispers to Cristina): "Carbon Dioxide"
Cristina: (whispers to Evan): "thanks Evan"
Cristina: (out loud and proud to Mr. Fuller): "CARBON DIOXIDE!"
(whole classroom busts out laughing)

Yup, so that was our first conversation together.  How sweetly nerdy huh?  Really...who does that to somebody?  Who would purposefully make fun of sweet, cute, little 'ol me?  As you can imagine, the hot cute boy had suddenly become mean in my eyes...and somehow we ended up being the great couple that we are now?  To learn more about our story, you'll just have to stayed tuned...