I Owe It All to " Welcome to Mooseport"

Bobby and I have been married for 4 years today and I thought I would tell the story of how we ended up together and how he proposed.

As some of you know Bobby and I met in High School. We dated for about 4 months and broke up but remained pretty good friends. When he left on his mission I wrote him and was excited to have him come home. We started hanging our when he got back home but did not start really dating for about a year after he returned. While we were dating each other we were still seeing other people as well. He was always the one I wanted to end up with and I was very patient waiting for him to fell the same way. well there came a point in time when I was done waiting. I knew he felt the same way about me that I felt about him but he was still running from it. Typical guy right.

I told him I was done waiting and the easiest thing for me to do was just make a clean break and not see him anymore. But, of course it was not that easy. We had a class together at school with a friend of ours, Chad, not his real name but he plays a part in the story. Chad and I had the class together and then met Bobby at the lab attached to the class after. We all sat together and it got awkward after the fight between Bobby and I but we were all civil and still had a good time. During this period of no Bobby Chad and I became closer friends. He was there for me and listened. He was an amazing friend, but he was not Bobby. I knew that if Bobby asked me and we could work everything out, I would go back to him in a heartbeat.

About 1 month of Bobby asked me if we could be friends again. That he knew why I felt like I had to leave, but he missed me and wanted me back in his life. I told him yes and we started hanging out again but only as friends, and on February 27, 2004 everything changed. We along with Chad, and Bobby's parents, went to see Welcome To Mooseport, a great movie that I highly recommend. For those of you who have not seen it, it is about a guy played by Ray Ramono who has been with his girlfriend for years and has not stepped up and asked her to marry him. She wants to marry him but is not willing to wait for him to be ready anymore and so When the ex-President of the United States moves back to Mooseport, she decides to let him take her out. So here is Mr. Ramono watching his girl slip away and into the arms of another man who treats her the way that she deserves and he realizes that she is worth fighting for, and no matter what she tells him, and how many times she tells him to go away, he is going to fight for her until he wins. So here we all were watching this movie. Me in the middle of Bobby and Chad wathcing a movie loosely based on the past couple of weeks of my life. I am sitting there hoping that Bobby is getting the message while I am watching this love story unfold on screen. I even go as far to say a prayer that he will get it.

Well he did and not long after that we were dating again, this time it was serious and we were on our way to marriage. Little did I know it was closer than I thought. You see while Bobby and I were not talking He had a lot of time to think about what caused him to act the way he did. He was afraid. He had lost his job, because he broke his foot and it put all his plans on hold. He could not support me any more. So in turn he felt like he had to keep me at arms length so I would not expect anything right away. As a result I thought that a proposal was only going to come after he had a job. So I was once again waiting but this time I knew what was going to come. And I had never felt more loved.

On May 19, 2004 Bobby called and asked me if I wanted to go out to eat with some of our friends and then go hang out with them. He came to pick me up and we went to eat. We went out with Andrea and Prasith, they were newly married and were so fun to be with. The whole night the conversation revolved around when Bobby and I were going to make it official. Bobby quickly changed the subject and we moved on. After dinner we went to see Nick, another freind of ours who had just gotten engaged. As we were sitting at his house, Andrea and I were talking on the couch and the boys were having a different conversation at the table. I overheard Nick say that Bobby was now the last to get engaged and when that was going to be. I kept listening hoping to get a clue, but Bobby just said "No, we still have James, and he is not even close." There went any hope for a wedding in the near future. We had a great night and left our friends and Bobby started back to my house. It was still early though and my curfew(yes I was 23 but still at home, and I love my mom) was 12. I decided that it might be fun to drive up and around the lake and just hang out a little longer. Bobby just smiled and agreed. We ended up parking and getting out at the lake overlook. We sat on the wall there and talked for awhile, then it started. Bobby turned to me and said, and I quote " Cristen, what do you want out of this relationship?" I gasped and said "you know, what I want, we have been over this tons of time." I got defensive because he asked me this at least once a week and it was very clear how I felt. He ignored my frustration and just looked me right int he eyes and said "I know but what do you really want out of this" now having asked me this as I mentioned about a hundred times already he knew what my response would be and I did not disappoint. I looked him straight back in the eyes and stood up to stand and face him, to make sure he really understood and said " All I want is to be with you forever." He took his hand from behind me and said " I guess you will need one of these then." He held up a box, with a ring in it. And I started laughing. Yes you read that right, I laughed. I could not believe this was happening. I was truly shocked and all I could do was laugh. I felt so bad when I looked and saw terror on his face and tried to compose myself. I apologized for laughing, told him I was just shocked. He then said "Cristen Pender, will you marry me" and I started laughing again. I put my hands on his face kissed him and yelled yes. All the while I was still laughing. I reassured him that the laughing was out of my control and that it was just the total shock that was laughing. Needless to say I was ecstatic and we were married 4 months later. He is my best friend and I love him to pieces. I can not imagine myself with anyone better. He is a great father and a superb husband.