The Making of the Peters Family Band:Missed Opportunities

In honor of our upcoming 10 year anniversary, a trip down memory lane...

Even though we went to college in cities two hours apart, Michael and I met four times before we started dating, which either means we were fated to be together or Michael doesn't recognize a good thing when he sees it.

Christmas 2001

Meeting #1: 1997/98?

This one may or may not have really happened. I didn't remember it until a few months ago when my dad was talking about running into Brother Sandstrom, who was the CES leader over my stake's seminary program and also Michael's institute instructor. (I am well aware that sentence makes no sense if you don't speak Mormon, but it would take too long to explain.)

I started thinking about Brother Sandstrom, and a vague memory pushed its way to the surface. I said to Michael, "Do you remember a singles conference in Murfreesboro your freshman year before you left on your mission?"

He thought about it for a minute and then replied, "Yes, I think I do."

I said, "I think I might remember meeting you there. Did you play tennis with Brother Sandstrom that night instead of going to the dance?"

Michael said, "That sounds like something I would do."

So there you have it. Michael and I may or may not have met our freshman year in college.


Meeting #2: 2000

This one definitely happened, but Michael doesn't remember it, even if he claims he does.

In September of my senior year, I went down to Nashville for an area-wide LDS singles conference, which started with a dance on Friday night. I'm not much of a dancer and had been ranting for years that there was no point for me to attend all these stupid Mormon dances because there was no way I'd meet my future husband at a dance. But I went anyway, and lo and behold, from across the room a boy caught my eye.

He didn't look like all the other Mormon boys - he was wearing Rivers Cuomo glasses and a cardigan, and he had mutton chops. I hoped that he'd notice me and ask me to dance, but he was busy goofing around with a group of friends in a corner of the room and wasn't dancing at all, with anyone, slow or fast.

Eventually, I got tired of waiting for him to notice me, so I marched across the room and asked him to dance. Unfortunately, I must not have made as good of an impression on him because as soon as the song was over, he went back to his friends and didn't acknowledge me the rest of the conference.

Or something like that. See, that's how I like to tell that story, but the truth is that I don't really remember much of that night. In fact, I had forgotten all about it until we met the fourth time, rehashed our histories, and then I was like, "I think I've met you before..."

But I know for sure that I was the one that asked him to dance.

Stuffing envelopes, 2001

Meetings #3 and #4 to come...