I alluded to how Cale and I met in my Icebreaker speech, but now it is time for the full story. Partly because I have never told the story here and seeing as we are coming up on our one year anniversary (June 10, almost a month away) I will be dedicating the time up to our anniversary to sharing with you all how we met, how he proposed, all the fun wedding details, and our honeymoon in Paris. Well and also there happens to be a blog carnival about “How I Met My Honey.” So there you go, enough to motivate me to write. Here it is, Part One: The Beginning.

Cale and I have several beginnings, but it is always best to start at the very beginning. In April of 1998 (I was 13. I am now 23), I got ready for my first day back at swim practice after the winter. It was chilly, and I was anxious over the start of the new season. I arrived at Greenacres Pool early to reunite with my friends after eight months apart during the school year. There I was excited to see all my friends only to encounter someone new. Cale’s mom had encouraged him to join for a season. I remember meeting him right outside the pool area. My friend introduced me to Cale, as their families had been family friends for years. He stood there clearly containing little excitement for this new sport, with his shaggy blond hair and skateboarding t-shirt. He never did take a liking to the actual sport nor was he very good at it, but he did enjoy being able to hang out on a regular basis. We spent that summer with our group of friends, and we would often call each other on the phone and became close friends.

Come the following summer Cale did not stay on the swim team, but his little brother Kelly started on the team, so Cale was still around for all the events. Halfway through the summer, during our annual water slide trip, Cale asked me out. During our brief “going out” we did what any fourteen year old couple did: spent endless hours on the telephone talking about nothing, kissed a total of about ten times (I counted), and went on many group dates to the movies. We were together a total of about six months when separate schools, no driver’s license (or driver’s permit for that matter), and probably some teenage angst drove us to break up. We handled it like adults: my friends were not allowed to utter the “C-word” (Cale, not the other one, dirty dirty), and when post-soccer game munchies happened to lead both of us to the same Sonic Drive-In, we handled it like any fourteen year olds would, we ducked down into our seats while our parents exchanged courtesy waves. And so for two years of my life, Cale was non-existent but ever-present in my thoughts.

Soccer games during “round one”

This was until a beach trip in 2001 (I was then 16) would bring us back together. When my friend swore up and down that Cale would not be joining their family on an annual beach camping trip to Carpinteria, I accompanied them, only to see Cale skateboarding over towards us once we arrived. The two days while I was there were spent avoiding the boys and strutting around in cute little outfits when they were around. I had to leave the trip early to get back to my summer job, while Cale and my friends stayed behind. Halfway through the following week I received a voice mail from a pay phone: “Hey Stephanie. Um this is Cale. I’ll talk to you later. Bye” With no way to call back and no idea what this mysterious voice mail meant, I spent the next few days horrendously anxious, with my cell phone at my side as I was waiting for a second phone call. Because while I had spent two years trying to convince myself that Cale was a loser, I had always known that he wasn’t. Neither of our feelings for each other had ever gone away. So finally, after the rest of the group returned from the beach trip, I got an instant message from Cale, who soon after asked me to Starbucks for our first date. The second time around.

that very first trip to Starbucks

Tags: About Those Corwins, Love

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