Story of Us - His Part 3

Finally!

He has finally finished his side of our story. (With Editorial Corrections and Comments in Red!)


I know, I was supposed to have this written ages ago but something happened; call it life, call it procrastination call it what you like but I finally got round to my final installment. (I call it laziness, if you're asking)

So I’m back on my way to America for two weeks, again I could have done anything else with my time. I could have gone to one of the 4 places I was originally going to (bragging yet again!), I could have actually started my new job and trained with the rest of my colleagues from the other company but no…. I chose to get on a plane and go back to see this girl I had left less than two weeks earlier. And anyway I have my training planned for my return.

I land in Orlando again and negotiate customs and immigration with no problems this time and as I walk through to the lounge area there she is, at least she was there to meet me this time, so we get my bags, head back to the car and start the journey to Jacksonville. This time was more like a vacation with Cassie showing me more touristy things such as the parks in Orlando, St. Augustine etc. of course there were more places to eat and I had to buy as many reeses (Reese's Cups were not in the UK at this point. I couldn't believe it the first time I heard this news. I said "Geez Reese's Cups are like their own food group over here!") as I could fit in my case to go back with, but on the whole I was on vacation this time and took it pretty easy. Two weeks later I head back to England to start my new job and prepare for Cassie’s trip over, Cassie at this point had booked a flight over to England and would be there for Valentine’s day, which suited me but I was a single guy living with my house mate Matt and the place was not exactly ready for female visitors. The next couple of weeks saw me getting into my new job, attempting to clean the house and generally just doing what I do.

So the day arrives and Cassie calls me en route to England, Heathrow is about 2 ½ hours from my house and she is due to land at 10pm so I have plenty of time to take care of my day before I have to set off, but I get to the airport at just the time her flight is due to land, there’s no point being early as she has to go through immigration and she took a US laden flight so it would be a while before she got through to where I was waiting. At the airport I got talking to a guy who was there to pick someone up and he told me the flight was running around 30 mins late. This turned into an hour and they finally landed at just after 11pm. (We were EARLY to London. They made us circle Heathrow for who knows how long before landing. BUT, I actually told him the flight was due to land at 10:55. That put us right on time!) She came through the doors into the waiting/pick up area and walked straight past me, AWESOME I’m that memorable! I called her and she turned round still not seeing me so I waived and she came over, everyone says our daughter looks like me so now all she has to do is hold Georgia up in front of her and check her face against the ones in the crowd. We kissed (obviously) and headed back to my car, she went to get in the wrong side and I asked if she really wanted to drive on the wrong side of the road the first time in England after such a long journey, she made some comment and sat in the passenger side.

The journey home was pretty straightforward as we don’t have all the eateries and things off the side of the road like they do here, but at one point Cassie did ask me why there were houses in the middle of the road and who would chose to live in the middle of a busy highway. I looked over to the central reservation and asked what she meant, no houses that I could see, she said “right there, there’s houses in the middle of the road”, I laughed and pointed out of my side of the car and said “that’s the middle of the road, see the cars over there going the other way”?, she made some comment and I laughed, it was dark so I’ll give her the benefit of a long days travelling and the dark. (Forget long days, traveling and dark, I was in a country driving on the WRONG side of the road! I'd never seen anything like it! Ever!)

Now here we are in England in February, if you’ve never been to England at that time of year it’s cold and wet and daylight is not very long, but I have plans and one of them involves something Cassie wanted to do… I asked what she wanted to do in her 5-6 days in England, her response nearly had me leaving her at the airport, she actually said she wanted to go to Paris!! (Trips to Europe, that's what the kids want. 22 countries in 3 days. {extra points if you can name the movie [except Casey!] } Forgive me for wanting to do it all. I'm American for crying out loud. I didn't realize all the underlying hatred between the French and English! ) Are you kidding me, here we have this entire country with so much to see and do (which we still have not done! Even with all our visits to England.) especially for someone who has never even stepped foot in it and she wants to go to France, not London, not see the country, FRANCE!! So being the nice bloke I am, I say nothing to her and book a hotel and tickets for the Eurostar to get us there. I tell her to this day, I’ve taken you once so any more trips are yours to take on your own. Not that I’m Xenophobic (???? Show off with your big words) you understand but there is a mutual dislike of French and English.

We are in Paris over Valentine’s day, you have to impress a girl right? and I have this ring with me which has very specific planning surrounding it’s being given. The idea was we would take a walk down the banks of the river Seine and at midnight I would propose, I mean, Paris at midnight on Valentine’s day who can say no? so we go out for a meal and take the Metro downtown to Notre Dame, we get off and walk around the cathedral before crossing the bridge and walking down the other side. Now remember I told you it was cold and miserable in England in February, well Paris is no different, it was FREEZING! Cassie has a cold (read FLU!) and we are walking with a wind blowing round us down the banks of the Seine and after a while I can’t feel my legs, Cassie is complaining (I was sick with the flu and he had me out at midnight, walking along a river, in the freezing cold. And for the record, I wasn't complaining, just freezing) and at 11:45 I give up and we look for a Metro station. We finally find one and head back to our hotel with me thinking “this girl has no stamina”.

The next day we grab the pastries and drinks from the hotel café and eat breakfast in our room (we did that every day of our stay there) (OMG the pastries! I want to go back just for the pastries!!) then head off to see the sights. Cassie is a big believer in jumping on sightseeing busses (travel trip ~ get a 48 hour pass on a sightseeing bus that lets you hop on and off. You can see everything from the bus the first go round and make notes on where you want to stop. On the second go round stop at the sights you wanted to take a closer look at. You don't miss a thing!) so we catch a taxi to the Eiffel tower and start from there. As we are standing underneath the tower I ask if she wants to go up, I’m thinking we can get to the top and I can propose there (Tom Cruise stole my idea for his proposal to Katie), the lines are pretty short and we can see Paris from the top. She says no she doesn’t feel like it and can we just catch a bus? (Again, I had the FLU! I said, "do you think it's a good idea for me to be going to the top with all that wind and it being so cold when I am sick" and he said "good point") GREAT! We walk to the bus stop just down street and jump on a sightseeing bus and travel round Paris on that, she’s not feeling great I later find out so we stay on the bus, no jumping off at the Louvre, no walk down the Champs Elyse, just riding a bus. By now I’m thinking I’ll be proposing at some Metro station or on the train back home, we finally get to the stop across the river from Notre Dame and grab a hot chocolate at the café there before crossing the river to the island the cathedral is on. We go for a walk round the inside to try and warm up a bit and there is a full on service going on! Back outside I decide that if I don’t pull this ring out now I never will, I had been carrying it round with me since last night and she still hadn’t caught on I had it nor had she got it on her finger. I say something about spending the rest of our lives together and she says something agreeable (sorry I can’t remember exactly what was said, something to do with nerves) and then I pull the ring out and say “so that means you’ll wear this and marry me then”. She looks at the ring for what seemed like a long time and I say “is that a yes or no” I mean you do hear stories of girls saying no at the wrong time. She just looks at me say’s “yes, yes,yes,YES” and I put the ring on. The ring was a labour of love in itself, I had researched the 3 c’s of Diamonds and found a jeweler clear across the country (OK ~ this is especially funny for me. He said he traveled all the way across the country to get my ring. I couldn't believe it! I was so impressed so I asked "How long did that take you?" and he answered "3 hours". Wait, What? 3 hours? I could travel for 3 hours and not even leave my state! It would take 3 DAYS to go across our country!) from me who custom made the ring and setting and put the specific cut of diamond in it which I found out beforehand is Cassie’s favourite cut.

So I finally did it, I finally proposed to her in Paris on Valentine’s day albeit not how I wanted to. We leave back for England the next day and the rest of her time here is spent visiting family and friends, on the Friday I have to go to a meeting so I arrange for my parents to pick Cassie up and take her out for the day which they did, they took her to the beach! Still they had a great day and they got to know each other pretty well. (If you've never heard me talk about my in-laws let me just say they are the best. I haven't met anyone that has in-laws like mine. They really are cream of the crop and I am so lucky to have them! You hear so many horror stories of in-laws and we certainly don't always see eye to eye but we are respectful in our very very very few and limited disagreements. I think they know I love their son very much and they treat me with respect because of it. I think they have raised a truly remarkable man and therefore I have no choice but to respect them! They are wonderful people and I am just as in love with them as I am the Englishman!)

5 weeks after Cassie’s trip to England, we arrange to meet up in New York, Cassie’s favourite city (sorry all the rest of the cities), for the weekend. I fly out Friday afternoon and we meet up at JFK and catch a taxi to our hotel. Cassie shows me the sights and places she likes to visit as she used to live there, it’s a very touristy week-end and too soon we are back at JFK waiting for our flights home. In less than 3 weeks I will be flying to Florida to get married so back home I get ready to leave my life behind and start a new one in the US. The day comes and my dad picks me up from my house to take me to the airport, it’s a trip he will be making with my mum, sister, niece and brother-in-law the next day. I get to Jacksonville and here I am, England and everything I had is now behind me, my family are flying in the next day and everything they can fit in their cases that is mine is all I can bring with me.

It’s been a truly whirlwind 5 months in which time I have gone from confirmed bachelor with all the toys I wanted to this guy whose madly in love with this American, and only has what can be brought over in 2 suitcases and whatever room was in my families. For the record, you cannot fit Ducati motorcycles, bass guitars or awesome stereos in suitcases but you make choices in life and I definitely made the right one when I married this girl. (Awww, how sweet. And I concur!)

Jason's Part 2

This is Jason's Part 2 of our story. I have to admit, this really touched my heart. I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Pt 2.

The idea for me was to write the first one and then write enough to let Cassie put one entry a week on her blog, but she had a different idea, like a typical editor she wanted more and sooner….. I won!! So here’s part 2 of my side probably with more editorial comments, enjoy…

So here we are in the airport and she has FINALLY showed up and taken my opportunity to have a week in Orlando away, so we make our way to the car and the first thing I notice about America is just how warm it is in December, now let’s be fair I have never stepped foot in the country so didn’t know what to expect but to me this was warm. On the way to the car my phone decides to pick-up a signal and just as we get to the car I get a message telling me that Cassie is running late and she’s really sorry, it’s from her but thanks to modern technology it arrives after she does she may as well have sent a postcard. So we get to the car and start to make out way out of the airport and I decide I will call Chris my mate back home. As we drive out of the parking garage onto the mean streets I look over to Cassie and just keep looking, I know she says I don’t take a good photo but she does and she looks just as good sitting next to me so most of the journey back to Jacksonville is spent just looking at her. To let you know how much attention I wasn’t paying to the road Cassie was on the phone to her friend Wendy when we drove onto a bridge, and this wasn’t just a small bridge, this thing was long and had no warning of coming up so I look round to see we’re just getting onto this bridge and say something in the form of an exclamation which makes her laugh, she tells Wendy and she laughs. The next part that Cassie decides to tell everyone about me is when we have to stop for gas along I95, she asks if I’m hungry and I could go for a bite to eat so she pulls off the highway and asks if I like Taco Bell, I have no idea as we don’t have Taco Bell in England but Taco’s are Mexican and I like Mexican food so she drives through Taco Bell to get us some Taco’s which makes me exclaim “a drive through Mexican, BRILLIANT” she finds that funny enough to tell people to this day. Then she pulls into the gas station next door and tells me to go ahead and start eating. After filling up and getting back in the car to find me with taco over my face exclaiming “ these things are Brilliant” which makes her laugh again as how can someone get so excited over Taco Bell, all I remember thinking was “I’m going to like this place”.

The rest of the drive home was pretty uneventful, not that I would know otherwise as I spent it looking at her the whole time. ( I know pass the bucket, but we had got to know each other very well having never even kissed until earlier that day and that is an awesome thing to build a relationship on).

So we get back to her place and I am so tired I just have to sleep but I have this present for her that the guy at Orlando Airport let me keep, and keep wrapped, so I have to unpack first in order to get it out of my suitcase. We stay up for a while and it’s only when I start to fall asleep that we call it day. The next day Cassie takes me to her office to meet her family and get through the Spanish Inquisition, not really true because as everyone knows – “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, their greatest element is Surprise…….”. Thankfully she rescues me and takes me to a bar-b-que place for dinner (I’m still English and it’s still Breakfast, Dinner and Tea), Cassie has already gone through the rigmarole that ensued in Bono’s and to be honest I very nearly turned into the English tourist who shouts very slowly at the locals in the knowledge that this will make them understand what you are talking about. It’s funny how everyone apparently spoke the same language but the waitress and me needed Cassie as a translator, I’ll put that down to being in the South as this still happens to this day. The funny part is I have had to slow my speech down and really take care of my pronunciation to the degree my friends back in England now think I’m a hick! And there are still people I meet or talk to every day who can’t understand me, Drive throughs are fun, and Dollywood can be hilarious! But anyway I managed to get what I wanted without acting it out because really how do you act out toilet activities to get your question across?

Lunch was unbelievable and the rest of my time over here was spent mostly being shown off to her family and eating everything possible, a bit like a travelling Zoo animal really with a lot more translation. We did go and pick Christian up from his dad’s one day and go to the Alligator place in St. Augustine for the day, I remember Cassie driving to a Krispy crème and getting a box of 12 doughnuts which Christian did a bloody good job of devouring when he got in the car, all I remember thinking is she tells me this kid has ADHD and she’s giving him sugar covered doughnuts this could get interesting.

Now I had a short haircut when we met and Cassie had a military ID card so she was paying and trying to get us the military discount when I open my mouth and ask if we can go into the gift shop to look around while she pays, there went the military discount. My mouth gets me into trouble on a regular basis and Cassie has found this out to her detriment on many occasions. Anyway we get in and have a very good day and Christian and me get along very well which could be the only time we did as very shortly afterward I married his mum.

On the day of my flight back to England we knew the day would end with us apart and neither of us really wanted it to come but we both had lives to get back to so it was inevitable. We stopped by her office to say bye to everyone and for Cassie to check on a couple of things before leaving, I took this time to ask her dad for his permission to get engaged in February when Cassie came over and he looked like he was going to cry, I’m sure there are still times when my marrying his daughter makes him cry for entirely different reasons, he called Cassies mum Faye over and told her what I had just asked and she hugged me hard and did cry just a little. They asked if I was moving her to England or if I would be moving here, I explained we hadn’t got that far but we would sort that out when the time was right.

We took our time getting down to Orlando and spent as much time as possible just being together before I had to go through passport control and back to the gate. At the gate I felt I just had to call her so I found a quiet corner, not easy at an airport gate in Orlando with a flight full of Kids and parents running round, but I called her and fantastically got her voicemail so I left a message telling her how much I had fallen in love with her and how I couldn’t wait for her to come over to England in February only 5 weeks away, I mean really, how sad had I become! I got on the plane not having heard from Cassie and knowing it would be at least a day before I could talk to her again.

The flight back was cruel, I got sick and spent the first part of the flight throwing up, my seat was next to an exit door but it was the door that has the slide packed in it so I had about 6” of legroom, major uncomfortable and can’t eat, not the best way to spend 8 hours of your life I can assure you butI got home and thankfully my dad was there to pick me up as it’s not the best idea to land at 6am and have to drive 3 hours home.

Then it was back to reality and life as I had left it, I had a meeting the day after landing that meant me getting up at 5am to drive “down South” for the day to start the year off with motivational stuff for the agents, 2005 was going to be a very good year for me. The next day after the weekly meeting for my team I get a call from my boss who tells me to meet him the next day, this does not sound good so on the way home I call Cassie and tell her what is going on and promise to keep her informed.

The meeting with my boss is not a good one, the company has gone bankrupt for a ridiculous reason and such a small sum of money I could have written a cheque for it myself, but after meeting my boss, Jeff, I call Cassie – here I am just having lost my job and I’m making transatlantic phone calls. I tell her it’s not good news but ask her if she could put up with me for two weeks, the funny thing is when I was leaving Florida my Brother-in-law Mark told me if I really liked this girl I would be back sooner than I thought, I did think he was nuts at the time because it takes a day just to get here so it’s not like I could fly over for the week-end or something, but here I was less than one week after leaving making plans to fly back.

I booked the flight back when I got home and prepared to spend another 2 weeks with this girl who had completely knocked me for six when I met her for the first time less than two weeks earlier. Jeff had arranged for the top people under his management to join another company and before flying out we all met with one of the directors of this new company who gave us a very promising introduction to them, we all left feeling very good about it but the training was going to take place whilst I was away so we made arrangements to get me trained upon my return.

The next day I was on my way back to the airport for my return to Florida and this girl who made me cry when we parted company last time….