3 years and counting...

Yesterday (July 22) marked the 3 year date of when I met Kuso. Here's the quick (kinda) story for any of you who don't know it, and also just to get it written somewhere.

It was a blind date. My friend Felise used to work with me. He is friends with Apinati, Kuso's oldest brother. Both Felise and Nati are married to palagi (white) girls. Kuso was talking with their wives and asked if they had any friends that would want to date a Samoan guy. Celeste, Felise's wife, knew I was dating this other Samoan guy at the time, but things weren't going so well. So she mentioned it to Felise, who mentioned it to me. (Little side note....Felise had been "looking" for a good Samoan guy for me. I had dated a few others and things just weren't going well. Part of the condition of being a "good guy" meant he had to have a driver's license and papers (his green card.) Kuso did not have either one, although he did have legal status because he had not overstayed his visa.) Despite not meeting all the criteria, I agreed to go out with him.

So the 6 of us (Nati, Shelley, Felise, Celeste, Kuso, and I) went out. I met up with Felise at his house. Then Nati picked us up, then we picked Kuso up. I was kind of nervous, but excited for something new. We went for Mexican food, went bowling, then went for ice cream. While we were bowling, Kuso asked for my number and said we should go out again. We were having a good time, and I felt comfortable with him, so I told Felise that we could just go back to his house and I would take Kuso home. (Logistically, that made sense any way.) We didn't go home right away. Kuso wanted to go dancing, but I had shorts on and didn't want to have to go change. We ended up going to Murray Park and just walking around and talking. We learned a lot about each other that night.

Felise called my phone around 2:30 am to see "what I thought" about Kuso. I told him that I was just barely driving home, so obviously, I thought things were good. (We had left Felise's around 10:30 or so.)

From there our relationship grew, but not without a few hiccups along the road. As previously mentioned, I was dating this other guy at the time (and Kuso was actually dating another girl.) I told that guy I had met someone new and didn't want to see him anymore. For a few days, it went back and forth of whether I was going to continue seeing the old guy or the new guy. Kuso and I had tearful conversations about it (after knowing each other for only 3 days.) By about day 4, it was official that I was done with the old guy and wanted to see what would happen with Kuso.

Here is a quick rundown of how we went from meeting to married:
* Met July 22nd - Saturday
* Following Friday, Kuso told me "I don't want to scare you, but I think I love you..." I was totally smitten, but wouldn't admit it. I told him "I have feelings for you, but am not sure I can call it love right now" yeah right! I was CRAZY about him.
* week 2 - we started talking about marriage, but down the road for sure...just casual conversation
* week 3 - he asked me to go to Samoa with him. He wanted me to see where he was from and meet his family so when he told me stories, I would know what he was talking about.
* week 4 - I bought my ticket - much to the disapproval of my mom (what are you thinking?)
* week 5-6 - we spent as much time together as possible. He was out of town working for a large part of it.
* End of week 6 - Kuso left to go back to Samoa (his visa was about to expire.)
* Week 8 - I went to Samoa (mid September 2007)
* week 8-9 1/2 - IN Samoa. Both American and Western. We had flights to come back to Utah the same day. He was stopped in Hawaii with immigration problems. Ultimately, he was sent back to Samoa and I came home. I didn't know for sure what was going on until 4 days later. WORST week of my life thus far.

From there, it was all phone calls. $5 a day for not quite 20 minutes on the phone. Fiance visa paperwork was being processed. I went back to Samoa in January 2007 for a visit. Eventually, the paperwork was approved and Kuso returned to Utah on April 11, 2007 and we got married May 19, 2007.