|
|
|
|
|
|
JoAnna Serra and Peter Sudbeck August 27, 2005
|
|
JoAnna says:
The first time I met Peter I was a junior in High school and he was the big college freshman. I was on a college visit at Iowa State University and staying with my brother. He walked into Phil’s dorm room and I think I was introduced as, “Tony’s Little Sister.” Later that night I asked him to dance and Peter being the suave guy he is turned me down. It wasn’t until after he asked my brother if it was ok that he finally danced with me. We later exchanged email addresses but I never thought he would contact me since I lived so far away. A few days later he emailed me and we began talking. I think we talked everyday for at least two hours until I made it back to Ames. I went back about a month later for my birthday and that’s when we had our first date. Even with the distance we still wanted to see where the relationship would go. That was almost five and half years ago, there have been a few bumps in the road but we just couldn’t stay away from each other. When Peter left for Europe I didn’t know when I would see him again. Then one day out of the blue he called me from Wales and told me that I have to marry him and that he can’t see his life without me. Less than six months later we were engaged! For those who don’t know the story of how he asked me I will fill you in: He flew into Des Moines from Texas to spend the weekend with me. Due to bad weather he didn’t make it in until Saturday evening. We went to dinner in Ames and he told me that he had a present for me but the real present wouldn’t be until after dinner. After we ordered some dessert he gave me the present. I opened it and there was a piece of paper that said- “1. Eat dinner 2. Order Dessert 3. Lift Fabric.” I lifted up the fabric and there was the ring. It was tied to a beautiful, hand sewn piece of fabric that said, “I love you, Will you marry me?” He got down on one knee and told me that he loved me from the moment he met me and asked me to marry him. I of course said YES!
Peter says:
I can remember the first time I knew that I loved JoAnna, but love simply isn’t a big enough force to elevate a relationship to its highest level. Therefore, I don’t want to focus on the first time I realized I loved her; instead, I would like to focus on the first time I knew I couldn’t live without her. This feeling came when I was studying abroad in Europe. This semester definitely ranks as the best semester of my college career. I not only realized I knew exactly who I wanted to marry, but I also got to see few amazing sites and party with some pretty cool foreigners (which included beating the pants off of two really cocky French guys in a game of pool).
Anyway, back to the romantic portion of this story... I was traveling with a group of six that I had met while living in Swansea, Wales. We were pretty much covering the European Continent on a month vacation from classes, which the University of Wales referred to as Easter Break. Our final site seeing destination was Paris, France.
When we got to Paris we were all very tried from taking a 10-hour train ride from the Czech Republic. We saw the famous Eiffel Tower and retired for the evening. When we got to our hostel I broke out my journal. I had taken a journal to write about my travels in Europe in order to capture the memories a camera couldn’t quite catch. Well when I started writing about our travels the one thing that I noticed was that I really wanted JoAnna to be there with me to see all of these beautiful things.
The next morning we all woke up early to take a day trip to Normandy. The rest of the group slept during the hour and a half train ride while I wrote about the feelings and emotions that I had for JoAnna. It was pretty much the first time I sorted out the feelings I had for a woman without involving a cocktail. When the train was coming to a stop at Normandy I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I couldn’t spend one more hour of my life without having her in it. And at the risk of sounding too cliché, I was walking on air. The rest is history and we have plans to ride off in the sunset on August 27 to start our wonderful life together. The End.
| |
|
|