Walmart: M&G Part Two

One week after I first noticed Matt's attention toward me had changed, my sister and her boys (she only had two then) happened to be in town and came to church with me.

Obviously, I was interested to know her thoughts on the cute guy that I sang with. And her thoughts were? "You guys have GOT to stop flirting when you're on the stage."

As I was leaving church that day to go meet Kiki, Cort, and Lane for Sonic, I noticed Matt leaving right behind me. He walked behind me, talked some more, flirted some more. Then I got in my car and drove away. It was later that I found out that he was trying to get up the courage to ask for my phone number but chickened out.

About a half hour later, as we were filling our bellies with Sonic, I received a text message on my phone from an unknown number which began an unconventional texting conversation. Long story short, Matt had hit up our mutual friend, Jeremy, for my phone number. Long story shorter, Matt asked me out for the next evening. 

It was about this point in time that I started jumping up and down in my apartment (literally). My sweet nephews were looking at me like I was crazy!

But I didn't care. I had a date! With the cute guy from church! Ah, sweet bliss. 

For the next 29 hours or so, butterflies consumed my belly.

Since the next day was a Monday, I had to endure a day of work before our date. As I was telling my co-worker all the details of the "ask-out", I remember feeling a calmness overcome the butterflies for a moment and felt something inside me say, "Just relax and enjoy the journey".

That evening, Matt picked me up for dinner at HuHot (still our favorite). Three things I remember about that dinner: very deep conversation for a first date, wishing that noodles were easier to eat attractively, and talking about egg nog.

Talking about egg nog led to a momentous trek to Walmart. It was while we were at Walmart that everything truly clicked into place. We got away from all the seriousness of our dinner conversation and essentially became children. We raced through the parking lot, did cartwheels in the office chair aisle, and pressed all of the musical toys so they were all playing at once.

It was also at Walmart that Matt says he knew he was going to marry me. There was apparently a moment when he was telling a story as we were walking, and I turned around to walk backwards so that I could focus on him better.

It's the little things, I guess.

After Walmart, we went to Barnes and Noble to get coffee. After some conversation on the floor of the music section and a race through the store (who could be quickest to look up a word in the dictionary, of course), it was time to call it a night.

After four hours together, we knew we had something very special.

Matt walked me to my door and the last words he said to me that night were, "Be blessed! I know I was!"

And so it began.