I met Jonathan at our apartment complex. Turns out he moved in a couple months after me. I was at the pool with my some of my family and he was there with his friends, one of which was a coworker of mine, and their kid. I said hello to her and spent the rest of the evening with my family. Of course I was briefly interrupted by his friend's child coming up to me to tell me that "My dad's friend thinks your HOT!", followed by the simple raise of Jonathan's beer as a way to say hello. Anyways, my family left for the night and so did Jonathans friends, but I thought I might slip back out to the hot tub to "finish my drink", but in all truth, it was so that I could say a proper hello to the man at the pool. We talked that evening and watched the sunset, and maybe even a kiss was involved... From the moment I met him, it felt like home. He walked me back to my place and said goodnight and in my head I thought, "Well, that was nice, who knows if I'll ever see him again!" and went to bed. The next day I went to work, and after a long twelve hour shift, all I wanted to do was go to bed. But I heard a knock at my door. As I looked through the peephole, the biggest smile spread across my face. There was the man from the pool holding flowers in his hand. In that moment I entertained the idea that this, for sure, was going to be my husband.

After getting off of a long day of work, my buddy and his wife and kid called and said they were going to come over and swim. I tried to tell my buddy that I was tired but he said "that sucks, see you in a few", and I'm glad he did because of what happened. I loaded up a cooler and met them all out at the pool for what I thought was just another day, but then I saw Candice. She was absolutely gorgeous. I figured out very quickly that my friends wife knew and worked with her and they chatted for a moment. My great friend thought it would be hilarious to get his son to go up and say something to her and sent him on his way, while telling me "watch this" then his son loudly tells this girl I've never met "My Dad's friend thinks you're hot!". I thought she had left with her family after that, heck maybe she didn't even live there, but 10 minutes later as I was getting ready to go home, here she comes back to the hot tub. We talked for hours effortlessly. It was sad that the night ended so soon. The next day I went dove hunting with another friend and his daughter who came with us made bouquets for all of us out of wild flowers and shotgun shells. I waited til Candice got home and brought the flowers to her thinking she may laugh or think it was the saddest thing in the world, but she loved it, and it hangs in a picture frame in our home to this very day.