I wanted to tell you how we met Joel. How he was Sprout for nine months, and liked chocolate milk. How excited we were and how we praised God for our little miracle. And then I realized to tell the story of Joel, was to tell the story of Leo and Sara.

Grin.

Sigh.

Giggle.

You see, Leo and I lived a while before we met. A long, messy, mixed up while filled with good things, but a whole lot of sad and awful things too. So when we met, things weren’t exactly traditional.

(Cue music and swirly lighting as we travel back in time to…2007. I know, SO long ago, but hold on tight, it’s a bumpy ride.)

Leo is minding his own business, literally. Sara is making a valiant attempt to survive the first year of law school. And in the middle of all this is a law student we’ll call Brad - because that’s his name, and we aren’t letting him off the hook. For reasons that later became obvious, Brad began incessantly pestering Leo and Sara. “I have this friend, he/she is JUST.LIKE.YOU. You sound just like him/her when you talk. You both agree on politics and religion and how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop!” (Ok, I made that last part up, but you get the idea) Unbeknownst to me, he was saying this to Leo, and of course Leo had no idea he was saying this to me. Brad also proceeded to tell me Leo was the most successful business man ever, was the toughest soldier in the history of the Army, and so handsome women swooned everywhere they went. Apparently at the same time he was telling Leo that I was the most brilliant woman ever to grace a law school, and so stunning he had to wear sunglasses to school. Brad has a propensity for dramatics. (Well, maybe I have a propensity for dramatics, but isn’t this fun?) We both continued to tell Brad that neither of us had any interest in meeting anyone. At all.

He persisted.

I finally agreed to let this alleged genius/hero/hunk send me an email, but I wasn’t about to release my phone number. So Brad gave Leo my email address. And … nothing.

At this point Leo was busy being a workaholic, and when I told Brad I thought he made up this guy because I hadn’t heard a single thing, Brad hounded Leo until he took a few minutes to draft me an email.

That first email was on Valentine’s Day 2007 and it made me laugh out loud. The emails continued back and forth, sometimes multiple times per day. We discovered that maybe Brad was right, although we certainly weren’t going to tell him that, we really were on the same page regarding all of life’s important questions. After a week or so I decided a phone call would be ok. During that first phone call I was working at Russell Training Center, where Mark Russell proceeded to yell a series of *ahem* inappropriate comments to see a) if he could embarrass me to death and b) what Leo’s response would be. I survived, Leo took it all in stride, and we talked and talked and talked. After a couple weeks of endless phone calls and countless emails we decided a date was in order. Saturdays were long days at the farm, but I dragged myself home and showered up, put on my favorite shoes (olive green alligator sling backs, so cute) with a pair of jeans and headed to Farmington Hills for an evening with a man I already knew but had never met. We had a riot just being us, clowning around and studying each other. I remember just staring at him in the car on the way to dinner, thinking I already knew him so well, but I had never seen this face. Who was this guy? And WHAT was I doing??? I did not want to be with anyone, yet here I was.

We saw each other the next weekend and the next. On our third date we went to the zoo where Leo took this picture:

Looks like two people in love, doesn’t it?

We were, we just didn’t know it yet. Well, maybe I didn’t know it, I think Leo did.

But that part of the story will have to wait for another day. So stay tuned for surprising trips, shocking questions and stunned family in How we Met, Part II.