Meet the Parents

Jesse's side of the story:

So Stephen and I had a pretty important moment in our new relationship yesterday: he met my parents.

We were both nervous. I was worried he wouldn't like my parents. He was more nervous than I was, though. Let me explain. My dad is 6'8 and drives a Harley (he also teaches second grade, so you can get the badass biker image out of your head now ;). I'm an only child. Understandable nerves? I think so.

Stephen and I are both incredibly fortunate that we are both so close to our parents, so the stakes are pretty high when meeting them. I've met his parents a few time (they live in the same town we are currently in), but my parents live about two and a half hours north of us, so it's obviously not as convenient to spend time with my parents as it is to spend time with his. Because we all have a four-day weekend (Happy Mardi Gras!), my parents decided to drive down for the day (because they missed me, obviously).

My parents came to my apartment where they met Stephen for the first time. Then we all went to Jason's Deli for lunch. In case you're curious, I had the salad bar and chili; Stephen had some kind of sandwich he didn't like. Obviously, we finished lunch with ice cream (if you don't know, you get free ice cream at Jason's Deli!).

We'll get better at this whole "we are bloggers and need to take pictures of things" thing.

All in all, things went really well. My parents like Stephen. In fact, they say he seems to be the best guy I've dated so far (they actually said that I improve with every boyfriend), so that's always nice to hear. I guess I can keep him, right?

Stephen's side of the story:

So yesterday was the most nerve wracking day in a while for me.... D-Day, the day I met Jesse's parents for the first time. As the time passed and it got closer to meeting them, I started feeling like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I decided to try and psych myself out by playing it as cool as an Eskimo selling Popsicles on a cool winter night. That thought lasted about all of 0.25 seconds when I saw Jesse's parents step out the pickup truck.

The first thought that ran through my head, no lie, was that this would be David vs. Goliath. So the typical David in the story is tiny; well, at 6'1, 250 lb., I'm no small David, but Goliath had me topped at 6'8 easy, and I had a crick in my neck after looking up at him all day. But instead of slaying Goliath, I just needed to befriend him as a formidable opponent. This challenge was due to the fact he is a key piece in Jesse's life.

Good thing for me that Goliath was a jolly fellow who did not care to slay the young David, but rather get to know one another. I knew things would be ok when discussing where to eat lunch and his first words were, "Anything but sushi."

*Alleluia*

Things were looking up: the discussion was flowing back and forth with Jesse's parents and lunch at Jason's Deli was good. As Jesse said above, my food wasn't the absolute best, but it was still good. Unlike Jesse, I passed up the salad bar and decided to go with a create your own sandwich. I decided to roll with a ham sandwich on herb foccacia bun with provolone cheese. Since the bread wasn't toasted, the ham was cold. (*enter disappointment*)

After enjoying laughs over lunch with Jesse's parents, we came back to her apartment to visit a little longer before I had to rush off to work. I enjoyed getting to know two individuals who raised such a beautiful and wonderful daughter, inside and out. They reaffirmed in me what I want in life, and that's to have happiness like theirs and my parents, but with Jesse by my side.

As I left, I had a good feeling about the day; the bear hug I received from momma bear helped reaffirm in my mind that I must have passed the first test. One hurdle jumped, but its a marathon of hurdles to jump get to our final destination together.