A lot of people have asked how Luke and I met. What better way to document our lives than through a blog? Lets start with a little bit of background:
If you know Luke you know he LOVES cars. In September of 2011 Luke bought a truck up in northern Utah and he and two of his friends drove up to pick it up. Instead of staying the night somewhere they decided to drive all the way back down to Hurricane. Luke had worked a long shift shortly before leaving to pick up his truck and hadn't slept in over a day. Just outside of Cedar City He fell asleep. When He woke up he over corrected and rolled his truck on the freeway going 80 MPH (Moral of the story, don't drive drowsy and don't speed!). His best friend Tyler was asleep in the backseat and his friend Rhett followed them in another car behind them. Tyler wasn't harmed but Luke was a mess. I'll spare you the details but because of a neck break and severe spinal cord swelling Luke was paralyzed from the neck down. Over the next year He was in and out of inpatient rehab and worked really hard to be where he is today. As you can see from our picture he can stand now and walks with the help of a brace. The only remaining visible signs of his paralysis are his brace and his left hand that he has very little range of motion in. Dixie Regional puts on a Jubilee of Trees every year and sponsors a department of the hospital. In November 2012 the sponsored department was the Neurology Department. What do you know, Luke was asked to be the special guest! At this same time, I was attending Dixie State as a sophomore. I grew up in Hurricane/St. George so in picking a college it had only seemed like the perfect place to be. I was returning home. I served on the Student Alumni Association as the Director of Community Affairs and Public Relations and I LOVED being a part of the Red Storm (Even if the mascot "Red Storm" Wasn't anywhere near as cool as the "Rebels")! I had being dating someone pretty exclusively for the first three and a half months of college and it wasn't going anywhere anytime fast. So I had decided to go on a mission and told him that we should "date other people" (cheesy I know). Three days later my Aunt Heather called me and asked if i would like to go to a concert with her at the Jubilee of Trees. Since I had just broken up with my boyfriend and didn't have any plans I readily agreed. Even if it was just the Osmonds. As we walked in, there was a video playing. A kid was sitting on a four wheeler talking about an accident he had been in (Luke). I leaned over and told my aunt that I thought he was pretty cute. She got excited and told me she was going to introduce us. I brushed it off thinking that that would never happen! She didn't even know who he was and why would he be here? Well, fate stepped in. Our seats were right behind his! As I walked in front of him i was pleading in my mind, "Please let him look at me and think i'm cute. Please let him look and me and think i'm cute!" Well..... to my shear disappointment, he didn't. In fact, he stared straight at the floor. "GREAT!" I thought (He'll tell you he looked at the floor because he was intimidated). We sat down and of course my aunt took things into her own hands. She reached forward and touched his shoulder, introducing us and asking him if he lived in Hurricane. When he answered yes my aunt asked him how old he was because "My neice Sydney grew up in Hurricane and is going to Dixie State." He's four years older than me so we never went to school together but it was a conversation starter! While my aunt kept Luke's parents occupied we chatted a little. The concert then started and Luke turned around. The whole concert, the only thing I could think of was how I was going to ask for his number. I'm not a forward kind of girl when it comes to relationships, I usually let them come to me. But for some reason I knew I needed to get this kids number. Well the concert ended and Luke and I started talking again. After a few minutes of small talk he said, "So.... Do you have a boyfriend?" A little surprised I answered, "Nope!" and he quickly followed with, "Okay. We're going on a date Monday." Shocked, but really excited I agreed and we swapped phone numbers. We went on a date on Monday and we have hung out every available moment since!
