It was Stanford's "field day" for new graduate students, one of those getting-to-know-you events that you're a bit embarrassed to even attend. For the most part it was a pretty disappointing event--just some people sitting on a lawn eating Costco muffins and chips. Annie was sitting with her new friend Jeremy Calder, also from New Mexico, when up sauntered Tyler with a few other new students. When the group sat down, Annie saw to her shock that this interloper appeared to be wearing a shirt with his own likeness emblazoned on its front. A conversation was struck up. Tyler was utterly unfazed by Annie's snide remarks about the shirt and asked her to elaborate. And oh, Annie elaborated! But he seemed to think she was alright anyway.

Tyler texted Annie regularly for the next week or so inviting her to various things. Only much later would Annie learn that all of those texts were actually mass texts he had sent out to everyone he had met--they weren't intended to be romantic at all. What a happy mistake on her part.

Check out this ukulele duet! Oh, how young we were.
This is from January 2012, just after we spent winter break in New Mexico together (because both of our families live there, not because we planned to go together). Tyler had decided he wanted to learn to play ukulele and Annie decided to go along for the ride. This video was shot in Annie's dorm room on Stanford campus at around midnight. In Annie's opinion, this clip may be the most adorable piece of documentation that remains from the days before either party had acknowledged that they were even MAYBE interested in each other romantically. In retrospect...it's blush-worthy.