Thank You Hot or Not

Don't act like you don't remember the awesomeness that was Hot or Not. This was a great site on which you could post a picture of yourself and hope to get a stellar rating. I at one point I was at a rating of 8.5. No, I didn't put myself on there... here's the story. I was living in West Virginia at the time. One day while talking on the phone to my friend, Klark (who was in Utah), I was told to log on to Hot or Not and check myself out. I was mortified. I had no idea how many people he had made small talk with, pretending to be me. Nor did I want to be in the "online dating" scene. It was all a little sketchy to me.
When I returned back to Utah I quickly recovered my stolen identity from Klark and starting cruising Hot or Not for entertainment. It was funny coming across people I knew in high school and giving others the stellar ratings they were hoping for. At one point I come across this profile picture:

It said he was living in Orem which sparked my attention, maybe I knew him. So I added him as a "contact" and left it at that. Then he contacted me and gave a link to a page with more pictures of him and friends. That is when it all started. I knew all of his friends. One of them was a family friend from our home ward, Matt Brown. He and Matt were roommates and had been in several places. Another friend of his was an older brother of a friend from high school, Scott Aland. He was also home teaching companions with my brother Mitch in a singles ward. I thought the connections were cool and felt that it was okay to start talking to this guy. Well we started writing emails back and forth and talked on IM when my parents Internet was working. There was a time when I wondered if he was ever going to ask me out. We had talked long enough and we knew so many of the same people that I knew he wasn't a scary online liar.
Finally, after more than a month of chatting online, he asked me out. He asked if I wanted to go to a BYU Women's Volleyball game and I was super excited. Only drawback...the date was like 3 weeks away. We kept talking on IM and then started talking on the phone. There were so many phone conversations that he would ask, "So what are you doing tonight?" I would always say, "nothing", in hopes he would ask me to hang out earlier then our date that was still 12 days away. But he just kept getting my hopes up.
Before our date came around I consulted with my Sister, Jeremy, to see if she felt it was safe for me to go out with this guy. She assured me that since I knew all his friends that is seemed pretty harmless. This sealed it for me and made me super stoked for our date.
Well October 25Th came and the date was great. He picked me up at my house in Lehi and then we went to the BYU volleyball game. I don't' remember any strong feelings on the date but I just remember being super comfortable the whole time. After the game we went to eat at the European Connection in Provo. It was there he did the first thing to make me really like him. He mixed fruit punch and sprite for his drink--something my dad does.
The next day my friend Ben Weekes came over and I had him help me make cookies for Pete. I knew by doing that I was guaranteed another date. Sure enough we went out again. We went with my brother Mitch and his wife Kendall to the Haunted Forest in American Fork. It wasn't until later I learned that Pete hated haunted houses and that sort of thing. That meant he totally dug me. That whole night I was trying to get him to hold my hand. I was acting super scared at every turn. I got a little contact but not much.
The Next day was a Sunday and Pete's family was in town so we headed up to Draper to meet his mom and dad. We ate dinner at his brother's house and I remember that was the first time he gave me chills. I was standing at the sink washing dishes and he put his hand on my shoulders. Don't you just love the sappy love chills?
That weekend was an awesome start to our life. The first day we spent apart was that next Monday and Pete did the most monumental thing that day. He told me later that while riding in the car with his friend Scott he played a song from a CD I had left in his car (on, um, accident) and told Scott that he would dance with me at our wedding to that song (and we did, by the way, so great!)
On November 1st we had our first kiss, and on the 11th we said "I love you" to each other. We spent as much time as possible together while we were dating. When my curfew approached each night I would cry. I hated leaving him and having to make the long drive home to Lehi. He proposed on March 9th and we were married on July 5th. I love our love story and am thankful to Klark....and of course to Hot Or Not. I know, shocking. We are an internet love story. Haa haa I would have never thought in a million years.