One of my favorite stories to tell...

How I met my husband... Part IV

(Part I)
(Part II)
(Part III)

I arrived in Hawaii ready to meet the man I'd been falling in love with over the past two weeks. My friend, Amy, picked me up at the airport with some bad news. Mr. Darling had duty that night, which meant he will be spending the night on his submarine. But on the positive side, He had invited me to have dinner with him on the sub. Officers have 3 to 4 course meals served everyday in the wardroom, and he wanted me to join him.

Amy knew where she was going so she walked me to the sub. As we walked down the pier, I was holding the new baby. Once we got closer, Amy offered to take the baby so I could have my arms empty. I refused to hand over the child. I needed a barrier... just in case.

But as we rounded the corner... I saw him. He was standing there in his blue poopysuit (cover-alls) holding a single red rose. As soon as I saw him, I tossed the baby over, gave a shy smile, and then a tiny little hug.

(I was nervous about the rules. I knew there was certain things he could not do while in uniform, but I had no idea what those certain things were. So, the biggest thing I remember about our first (second) meeting was being horribly worried about getting him in trouble.)

Mr. Darling escorted me onto the sub where they announced over the speaker, "There will be lady visitors on board until further notice." (Why, thank you! Now the men will be on their very best behavior... you know, since a female is present and all.)

The first thing we did was sit down for dinner. I remember the chairs being super heavy. It took me forever to scoot my chair up. (Maybe, he should have done that for me.) Why do I remember that, you ask? Oh, because I freaking pop a finger nail off trying to move the dang thing. I spent big money on those suckers and lost one in the first five minutes. I spent the rest of the night trying to hide that particular finger. (I wonder if the cleaning crew ever figured out what that thing was when they found it, if they found it...I looked all over and never found the stupid thing.)

Dinner was amazing. Then on to the tour. I saw the torpedo room and the periscope. I got to see where Mr. Darling stands to "drive the boat." Of course, I was not welcome to see any of the real cool stuff, but that's okay, because I did get to see how they flush the toilets and that was just crazy!

I saw his rack in his stateroom, that was shared with three other officers. And we may or may not have shared our first kiss in that same stateroom. I cannot say for sure. No, in fact, it couldn't have been there, because that would have gotten him in BIG trouble!

Finally, we spent the rest of the evening watching a movie in the wardroom, Punch Drunk Love with Adam Sandler. Cool little tidbit about the Navy: They get access to movies before the rest of the world. They're just in a weird format. This lets the men and women in the military get to watch recently released movies without having to go to the theater. Pretty helpful if you are in the middle of an ocean somewhere.

So our first date was dinner and a movie aboard the USS [edit] (Mr. Darling says that is too much information. ) Redo: So our first date was dinner and a movie aboard Mr. Darling's submarine.

The next few days were spent seeing Oahu. We went snorkling at Hanauma bay, enoyed the Honolulu zoo, visited one of those amazing Hawaii waterfalls (that, had it not been so crowded, we could have gone swimming underneath.) And then he took me to to Kaneohe, (because that is where he lived) I find out later, he has been carrying around my engagement ring the entire time... and when I say carrying, I mean it was TIED TO HIS BOARD SHORTS! Sweetheart, I love you, but seriously, it was tied to your board shorts??? His reasoning, "I'm in the navy, I know how to tie knots!" Nevertheless, it was an amazing few days.

Apparently, he had also been conversing with Amy. Everyday, he would ask her if I would say yes if he proposed.

She would say, "Not yet, She's not ready yet!"

Then New Year's Eve rolled around. Mr. Darling planned a romantic night up on a hill that overlooks three different bays. Each bay was going to have its own fireworks show. So, we could see them all from up on this hill. Little to my knowledge, Mr. Darling was going rogue. It was do or die, he was going to pop the question, if I said no, or that I wasn't ready, he was done. Everything was set to go until about 15 minutes before we left, then Amy gets a call... she is crying as she hangs up. James's tour had been extended and her husband would not be coming home for another 4 months. Well, I couldn't just leave her there crying, so I invited her to come along. (Poor Mr. Darling...It's not like three's a crowd on the night you are going to propose, right?)

We bring a blanket and sit down to watch the fireworks. Mr. Darling pulls me off for some privacy and we kiss a bit under all the flashing lights. He starts to say something, but at just that moment, I look over and see Amy sitting there so sad. So I drag him back over the blanket to put my arm around her. (He frustratingly follows... I mean, there is nothing like trying to propose when the dang girl won't stay in one place long enough to get the question out.) Now, we are sitting there, Mr. Darling and I holding hand, watching the fireworks and then I remember something I needed to tell Amy. I go into this long diatribe when suddenly she puts her hand up, stops me and then slowly points to Ryan. I turn to look wondering what in the world could warrant such an action... And THERE HE IS... underneath a gazillion fireworks, on one knee, holding a tiny little box. To this day, I have no idea what he said... All I remember was time stood still as I tried desperately to figure out what my answer should be. This was a life changing moment. I didn't want to say Yes, just to change my mind later. I didn't want to say no, because I seriously loved this guy. But SERIOUSLY, we had only talked to two weeks. You can't get engaged after two weeks. This is CRAZY! Then, he is there staring at me, waiting, needing an answer. I can barely squeak out, "o'tay." That's right I said o'tay, not yes, not even okay. I had resorted to baby talk. I was scared to death.

And then it was over. It made perfect sense. It was exactly what I wanted.

I loved him, I wanted to be with him, it was perfect!

So two months later, over my spring break, I flew back out and we were married at the Justice of the Peace. (Our little secret!) Mr. Darling was set to deploy and we wanted to be married before he left. We would eventually have a church wedding almost exactly one year later. His deployment gave us even more opportunity to communicate. All we had was email and an occasional phone call.* We learned so much about each other that year. I often wonder if our marriage would be different if we hadn't had that year. We don't fight much, but we had one or two little squabbles early on, when we did, we would resort to letters to resolve our issues. He would type something on the computer and leave it for me to find. I would do the same. It worked for us. We're weird I know.

But we have an amazing marriage... 7 years and 3 kids later and we are still going strong.

*I did try and actually see him once while he was deployed. I flew half way across the world to a little island in the middle of the Indian ocean. The sub was suppose to pull into Seychelles, and I, never having left the US before, went to meet him there. But, he stood me up and never showed... that, however, is another story.

(I do have one final chapter to our story, but it is more religious oriented. The God behind the story...coming soon.)