She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd. She's a woman, therefore to be won.

Most of you are in on the Mae n' Coop scoop. However, for those of you who don't have the full story now is the time to keep reading! 

April of last year was when we met. According to him, when he saw my curly hair in sacrament meeting he decided I was worth getting to know. Cute, huh? However, MY freshly broken heart was not so easy to convince. We first said our 'hellos" in the hallway next to the bishop's office while waiting for interviews. I remember looking across the hall and seeing him socializing with some of the other guys in the ward. As I watched him for a few seconds by brain did something funny and in my mind I heard, "that's your future husband".  ~Say what?~ I rejected the idea because my heart was still fixed on the idea that men = controlling, selfish, annoying chunks of walking muscle tissue.  For the sake of my emotional safety, I was not ready to let go of my wall built out of high heels and a feminist attitude. He seemed like a friendly guy, but I left it at that. 

A few weeks later, Cooper shows up at my doorstep to invite us girls to come to Sammy's because his band was performing there soon. (He now tells me that he made those hand outs JUST to have an excuse to come talk to me) Again, how cute. I regret to say that I did not come to his concert, nor did I engage in much conversation with him at our doorstep. He pinned me as a snob. 

As the semester started to roll along we eventually became great friends. I invited him to a game night at porter park where he decided to flirt up a storm with me. I will admit, by that time I started to feel like there was something special about this Cooper guy. I remember at some point in the night we were all walking together to get ice cream. We were walking next to each other and while I was telling him about myself, I mentioned that I did ballet at some point. (I didn't admit to it being only a few months) He kind of perked up and told me about the 4 years he spent as a dancer in high school and some college. He then did a twirly spin and I felt super lame about my lack of finesse. I then admitted that I hadn't taken ballet long enough to even get to the dancing part. 

Later on in the night, he ended up being the first to leave the party. A few seconds after he had left the apartment, something made me decide that I wanted to go home also. I ran across the parking lot and called his name (asking for a ride). On the drive home I told him that I cry a lot (because of my girly emotions getting the best of me). Little did he know how well acquainted he would become to my teary moments, or how wonderfully skilled he would get at making them disappear. 

Eventually that handsome young man asked me out on a date. By now we already had nick names for each other and the "friend chemistry" that we shared was divine. Obviously, I accepted the invitation to go on a date with him. 

The night of our first date was perfect. I needed someone to make me laugh and just to talk to. He was there and made me feel so comfortable. We went to the sand dunes to have a bonfire with a large group date. We found some entertainment in running and jumping off the dunes, he also decided to tackle me and make us go rolling down the big piles of sand. I just remember how I thoroughly enjoyed his company and the laughter and conversation. Thankfully we have an actual picture of us on our first date at the dunes! 

 Look how cute. We had no idea that one year later we would be getting married!!!! 

This story is going to take me more than just one blog post so I will break it up into segments. I will stop here and just say that at this point, I was still being silly and had my heart closed...however...learning how sweet, fun and accomplished he was made my mind start to tick. He deserves a metal for how hard he worked to "woo" me. I will talk more about that next time though.