Friday, September 3, 2010

An Autumn Memory

Forecast from http://www.wzzm13.com/
Cooler temperatures have arrived in West Michigan for this Labor Day weekend, reminding me that autumn is just around the corner. Although the sun and heat of summer makes that my favorite season, autumn is definitely a very close second favorite!

This time of year just brings back so many wonderful memories, I can’t help but reminisce about football games, tailgating, first days of school, and so much more! With all of these nice memories floating back into my head, I was reminded of a particular memory that I thought would be great to share as an example of “where I’ve been” for my blog, that has brought me to “where I’m at.”

And of course, that little memory is the first time I met my husband, Chaz!

It was more than just “Hi, my name is Chaz.” “Hi, my name is Sarah.” Boom! Done, we met… I think a lot of little things happened that caused us to meet…

During my senior year of high school, I was all set to go to Michigan State University. I had done the college visit, I had set up an orientation, I had signed up to be in the engineering dorm, and we had our first payment submitted. Life was good.

But I soon changed my mind based on the silly heart of high school girl, and decided I should stay closer to home, and attend Grand Valley State University. However, despite changing to a college less than 7 miles from home, I still made the best decision of my life - to live in a dorm on campus!

So, orientation was cancelled, dorm selection was cancelled, payment was cancelled. And everything was instead set up for GVSU.

I had again signed up to be the engineering dorm, which was in what GVSU calls a “living center” – where the rooms have a suite mate that share 1 bathroom. When I happened to discuss this with my older sister Lisa, she explained that living in a living center was going to be extremely boring, and not very fun. Her impression had been that they were always so quiet because nobody ever had to leave their room. She thought I’d have a lot more fun if I changed to the type of dorm that had a community bathroom where people were always coming and going and walking the halls of the dorm. Looking back, I now wonder if she was serious, or if she was trying to trick me… Either way, I promptly called up GVSU and requested to change my dorm selection. Unfortunately, I had already been assigned a room in the engineering dorm - The Pew, as those who lived there referred to it. I wasn’t going to be able to switch. Oh well…

So, the summer passed, fall was approaching, and it was time to move in to the dorm! How incredibly fun that first weekend was - after move in but before classes started! Some of those memories will have to be in a different blog post someday!

Well, sometime during those days before classes had started, I happened to be on my computer in my room with the door open. A few different people that were living in The Pew had already dropped by to introduce themselves. One more person happened to stop by on this day. He introduced himself (although I’m terrible with names, so as soon as he said it, I had already forgotten it), and he said that his room was across the hall, and he wasn’t from here and had no idea where his classes were. I told him that I WAS from here, and I still didn’t know where my classes were! So, we decided to get out our schedules and venture on to campus to find our classes so we didn’t look like silly Freshman on the first day!

A portion of GVSU's Allendale Campus
On our search for class locations, we chatted about where we were from, what sports we played, interests, friends, etc. We got along great!

Later that day, I can remember talking to my roommate about the people we had met. Neither of us could remember the name of the guy across the hall that we had met, but fortunately each the names of the room inhabitants were written on each door. We peeked across the hall and say “Chad” and “Charles.” Both of us agreed it must have been “Chad” that we met! Of course, we eventually discovered that it was “Charles” who we had met, although he goes by “Chaz.”

That first semester at Grand Valley was so much fun! Unfortunately, Chaz and I didn’t always get along very well. I believe a couple incidents that stick out involve my laundry basket gone missing, and him on my computer. But eventually we started hanging out more and before we knew it, I was his “shadow” and he was my best friend! And he’s been my best friend ever since!
Our wedding day!  We had to get a picture of us in front of where it all began!

Just think, if I hadn’t started at GVSU that autumn of 2001… who know’s where I’d be now!

What is one of your great memories of the autumn season? I’d love to read about them!

4 comments:

  1. Aww! What a cute story! :)
    I also love autumn, my guy and I met in sept 2006. Annnd we're getting married next weekend!

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  2. That is such a sweet story! I love the wedding pic from where you guys first met- that is so cute :)

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  3. Congrats on the wedding Vanessa!

    Thanks for the comments! I love reading them!

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  4. awww, i love the whole 'back to school' part of fall. and i love that i know EXACTLY where you are talking about :) i lived in Hills, and loved my freshman year at grand valley! i actually met matt on the 50 after a class we had together at eberhardt center on the first day of classes our sophomore year. although we didn't start dating until a few years after that, it's still a fond memory!

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