The Hatchery...and Happy Anniversary!

As you can see, I got a little sidetracked during my blog catch-up. I wanted to experiment with the new Template Designer (which is awesome by the way), and ended up changing our whole blog...and renaming it to 'The Hatchery,' which is quite fitting considering Thursday was our 5-year anniversary...

I'll try to keep this short... Shane and I met at Liberty Square at BYU (I know...so cliche), and no matter what Shane says, he completely ignored me when we first met. Granted, he had a girlfriend at the time, but I tried my hardest just to get him to talk to me. After a couple months of Sunday game nights, Mario Kart tournaments, a break-up (for Shane), and lots of hanging out in the apartment across the hall so Shane would notice me, we ended up playing a game of mud football one rainy night in October:


After a quick team huddle, Shane wanted to make a deal: if we won I had to take him out to ice cream; if we lost he had to take us out to ice cream... I didn't see a problem either way and quickly agreed. I don't remember who won or lost actually, but after the game we set a day to meet in the Wilk for ice cream.

That week, my wonderful roommate Joleen was in Shane's apartment talking with him and Brandon, his roommate. They seemed to be beating around the bush of me and Shane (or at least the possibility of a 'Jessica and Shane'), but I was just getting out of a semi-relationship with Shane's neighbor. Somehow they all decided talking in code would be much better than just discussing everything outright, so Joleen and Brandon started a theoretical discussion about investments: Joleen had a client who was deciding between two potential investments--Thomas Water Co. (the semi-relationship was with someone whose last name was Thomas) or the Hatchery (if you don't understand how this relates to Shane, you don't know us at all...). Brandon wanted to know how much Joleen's "client" was interested in investing into each company. In the end, Joleen and Brandon communicated to each other that both Shane and I were interested in dating each other, but it took a long time...

Meanwhile, I was in class... Joleen had texted me and told me she had told Brandon how I felt about Shane. As soon as I received the text, I got a call from Shane. He told me that he couldn't meet for ice cream and he didn't think we should reschedule...and then just sat there on the phone. My heart dropped--apparently he knew how I felt and wanted nothing to do with me. After what felt like an hour on the phone (but probably only 10 seconds), he said he thought dinner and a movie that weekend was a much better option!

After that phone call, we were together pretty much nonstop... Our first date was to see The Grudge (it was Halloween weekend), our second date was to a BYU volleyball game the next night, and the rest is history...

{Picture from our second date. The sunglasses are part of Shane's costume}

I know this isn't your typical, cheesy, wedding-picture-filled anniversary post... At dinner last night, we were talking about the first day we met, which led us down memory lane for a while. It got me thinking about those times, when everything was new, exciting, and stressful (yes, stressful). It's interesting to see how far we've come from that and know that even though things have changed, we've grown closer and love each other more than ever! Here's to the next 5 years!

(Side note: When I first set up this blog I wanted to name it The Hatchery due to this story, but I thought that a name like that suggested one of the following: (1) we had lots and lots of kids or (2) we were trying to announce we were going to have a baby. Since neither was true, I decided to stick with 'Shane and Jessica'. Now that we have Dylan with us, I decided it was time for a change...)