First “date”?

September 4.2014
Rob texted me Monday night not long after he got my phone number. We texted throughout each day for the next few days that week. Monday before he had asked for my number, we had talked a little bit about going on a hike together soon, but I was waiting for him to initiate that. I wasn’t playing hard to get, but feel it’s the guys responsibility to do the asking. My thought process was, if he’s interested in me, he will initiate. My brother Tracy always use to say, guys don’t hang out with girls they are not at least somewhat interested in; they just don’t. That had been true in my experience up to this point, so I was standing by that belief.

Thursday afternoon rolled around and Rob texted me something vague like, “I am thinking about hiking tonight, you in?” I wasn’t sure if that meant he was hiking and would like me to go with him or if he was just informing me that he was going hiking and it didn’t matter to him if I came with him or not. Oh how boys communicate so differently from girls 🙂 I assumed the best and took him up on his offer.

When Rob picked me up from work, I realized I was wearing the exact same shirt, shoes, and workout capris that I had been wearing for most of the lost coast trip. Great, I was thinking. He’s going to think I don’t have any other clothes. Instead of feeling awkward about it, I just laughed it off with him when I got in his car. That was one of those small moments that showed me that he didn’t really care about superficial things. He was down to earth and so real with me. I loved that about him. It was one of the first things that really attracted me to him.

We drove out near Big Cottonwood Canyon to the trail head for a hike called Bells Canyon. The hike was only about 5 miles round trip, but the last 3/4 to 1 mile stretch we were climbing in elevation almost the whole time and the trail was covered with large and small boulders. I was sweating bullets. We talked all the way up to the falls and all the way back down to the car; Rob’s occasional deep breaths almost unnoticeable under my heavy breathing. Ha! Since the sun had gone down, and we didn’t bring any flashlights (other than Rob’s phone) the hike down was a little slower than the hike up, but that gave us more time to talk and get to know each  other better; which was nice. I learned a lot about him during our hiking adventures 🙂

I learned a lot of cool things about Rob on that hike. I learned that he wants to live/raise a family internationally for at least a few years, which I would love to do as well. We both love languages. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Piura, Peru returning in 2010. He loved Peru so much he has been back to visit since returning from his mission. We both LOVE food (that was a non-negotiable) for both of us. That is just a few things I leaned about him.

After we were done hiking both of us were hungry (but I’m always hungry so that wasn’t unusual for me) 🙂 . We drove down to Sugar House and found a little pizza place along 2100 South to grab a bite to eat. We shared a medium size pizza. I am a very slow eater, so he was done with his dinner before I was finished with my second slice of pizza.  Up to this point, just based on his body language and our conversations, I had no idea if this was us just hanging out or a date, but I hadn’t really put much thought into it. When the waiter brought out the bill and Rob immediately got out his credit card, I figured it was a date, or maybe he just felt sorry for me because I only owned one pair of clothes and could use a free meal! :}

He drove me home and when we got to my house we sat in his car and talked until 2 am. It was awesome.  He was easy to talk to. We could talk about anything. I loved that. Both of us hated the dating games and we expressed that real quick.

When Rob and I talked about our first date a few months later, I learned that we were on the same page that day. At this point neither of us were sure if we were interested in being more than friends or not, but we liked what we saw and we were definitely interested in spending more time together. We had fun together no matter what we were doing.

I saved him in my phone as “Rob Lost Coast” and he stayed that way in my phone until after our wedding. 🙂