So the first time we met probably would have been about 14 years ago when April and my sister, Lisa, were on the same softball team as girls. Being a sports fan, I found myself at quite a few of Lisa's softball games throughout the years, and had you told me that my future wife was out there, I don't know what I would have thought. Unbeknownst to both of us until much later was that we grew up only blocks apart in the same neighborhood for pretty much our entire childhoods.
Fast forward to April 2009, when I was hired as a server at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse. At the time, April had been working at BJ's for a year and a half as a Host. After starting, because we were in different roles, we really had no interaction. But still there was a time when I was needing something from the front desk and April was working. Sort of out of nowhere, she randomly asked me if I was Lisa's older brother (correctly figuring that there were not too many "Scotto D'Abbusco" names going around). This was pretty much the sum of our interactions for the first eight months or so at BJ's, even after she moved up to being a Server. Every now and then, we struck up a conversation about the Angels or something sports-related, but still, nothing really to write home about.
That all changed one evening in January 2010 via, of all things, Facebook chat. But there's a story that comes first....one day, April was serving and a peculiar elderly man started to ask April for several things during his meal (despite April not being the server for his table). Innocent enough, right? Well a few days later, April was called into the manager's office where she was handed an envelope that had been dropped off and addressed "To Waitress April." April opened it up to find the elderly man's personal card with his picture, a phone number, and a note asking her to meet him for coffee. It was right around this time that I wandered into the office for something I needed, just in time to hear April recount the story from the beginning (and finding it both hilarious and a bit creepy). Well a few days later, after April had remarked on Facebook about what it meant to be "Single" on her profile, I wanted to make a joke about her secretly just wanting to make a coffee date with the old man ;) But, being the noble and considerate man I am, I didn't want to share that story for the rest of Facebook to read....so I saved it until I happened to see her on the aforementioned Facebook chat....and well, it must have been quite the icebreaker ;)
A light-hearted and innocent conversation that began at 11pm on a weeknight, after weaving through subjects such as sports, our awesome pets, hockey vs. curling, geography, April's plan to go to Humboldt State in the fall, and my pursuit of a career in sports, we found ourselves talking until almost 3 or 4 am and finding every excuse to keep the conversation going and our eyelids up! From that point on, it was just about finding the way from awkward interest to an actual date.
After finding a time to walk our dogs together, share a coffee at Starbucks, and talk about going to an Angels or Ducks game together, I gathered up the courage to ask April on a date that I had already been planning for about a week and a half. The funny part is that we didn't even make it to that first date before sharing (or, more to the point, pecking-and-running) our first kiss. After having some car troubles, April came to my rescue by picking me up from work and taking me to the mechanic (which, oddly enough, we shared the same one). On the way, we stopped for lunch and had a great time, and when she dropped me off, I think I surprised the both of us when I leaned over in her Mustang and gave her a kiss before high-tailing it out of the car in fear that I had just made a huge mistake. Luckily enough, I hadn't :) The next night, I went on my last first date ever and I knew I had found the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with!
