Danielle Burkleo

a love story

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hi! i’m emily and i blog at anderson family crew
The story of Mr. Anderson and I.
well, it all began with us being born.
true story.
mr. anderson was born in the good ol’ state of california—and lest you forget that, he’ll remind you daily. he was busy being a cute lil’ asian kid…
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while i was half a country away, hamming it up in kansas.
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back to the story.
growing up, i was what some may call “boy crazy“.
while mr. anderson never had a girlfriend until he asked me to be his.
quite opposite, i tell ya.
fast forward to the winter of 2001. (i know, big jump)
i decided that i needed to take a break from dating boys…sort of a fasting, if you will.
i told the lord, “okay, i’m gonna take 3 months and not date any boys…seriously. why are you laughing at me, lord?“
okay, the lord didn’t laugh, but most people (like my BFF) did.
they didn’t think i had it in me…neither did i, actually.
i liked boys.
a lot.
so, 3 months…i could do this. i would spend my time focusing on my life, and who i am when i’m not dating anybody.
fast forward 3 months.
i apply for a spot to go to this “preview weekend” that campus crusade for christ holds yearly.
it’s basically a weekend where you get to tour their headquarters…and see about working there in the future.
well, they only took 75 college students, and i, my friends, did not get accepted.
bummer—especially cause it was the dead of winter in kansas, and hot and sunny florida sounded oh so appealing. my pasty white skin was beginning to look scary.
well about 5 days before the weekend, i got a phone call saying “that a spot had opened up and would i like to take it?”
i replied back with “hollllla. me and my pasty white skin are there!”
so, now it’s the morning i was supposed to leave for sunny florida.
when i woke up, there was about 2 feet of ICE outside. not snow people, ICE.
kansas had just survived one of it’s biggest ice storms ever.
when i get to the airport i realize that my flight is 1 of about 10 flights that are still flying out.
only about 8 hours delayed.
so i finally arrive in florida and at this point, i’ve missed the whole first day of the weekend.
i’m sitting in the hotel lobby, waiting for everyone to get back from a meeting.
college students start flooding in through the doors, and in he walks.
this day just so happened to be the day my dating fast ended as well.
coincidence?
i think not.
i am completely drawn to him, because 1. he is asian. and 2. he is rocking a thrift store t-shirt. and 3. he has an afro. yes, you read that right. an afro.
i am bound and determined to meet this kid, but little did i know that God was bound and determined to make us meet too.
i went to bed, dreaming of my future with a kid whose name i didn’t even know.
the next morning i wake up and go get my breakfast. as i’m pouring myself a bowl of fruit loops at the hotel lobby continental breakfast, i see him again.
i felt all a-flutter.
sweaty palms. worried about tripping as i walk back to my table.
you know, the usual.
i proceed to chat it up with the people at my table…really not listening but making myself look oh so appealing, as i laugh out loud. i’m hoping the mystery boy thinks this is the fun table and wants to come over.
no such luck.
i finally get to meet him because we are put in the same group for a crusade headquarters tour. we secretly talk in the back, not listening to the guy giving the tour. so rude, i know. but this is love we’re talking about here.
the moment when it became real love to me was that night at dinner. we end up sitting at the same table and are chatting it away.
i am full, and can’t finish the food on my plate. mr. anderson asks “are you gonna finish that?” referring to the leftovers on my plate. i felt like we had been married for 20 years. i mean, he hardly knew me but he was comfortable enough to want to eat the leftovers on my plate? (or maybe he was just a hungry, growing guy—who knows, but i like to think that it was the first). i know this sounds weird, but that moment changed everything for me. i knew i wanted to spend every moment i could with him that weekend.
after dinner, we ride back in a conversion van full of people. we pull over at this really cool place in orlando…have ya’ll ever seen wayne’s world? there is a scene in the movie when they lay on their cars and watch the planes fly over them, right before they land. well, we go to that place. and everybody is out of the van, but only mr. anderson and i are laying on the roof of the van…watching the planes fly over us (crazy!).
fun for us.
awkward for the 7 other people that were with us.
time to return to the hotel and call it a night.
i dream of him, yet again…only this time, i know his name.
the next night, there is a group of us that decide to go eat at T.G.I.Fridays. while there, i proceed to show him how muscular i am, by flexing my muscles…not just “here, look at my muscles” but rather “here, look at my muscles, but first i have to take my sweatshirt off and pull my sleeve up as high as i can. no really, hold on…look, my muscles are huge.” not my proudest moment, but clearly, it worked. side note–he still makes fun of me for doing that. again i say…not my proudest moment.
we both have early flights leaving waaaaay early the next morning, so we decide to stay up all night and talk.
we talked about our lives…past, present, future. he wanted 5 kids. i wanted 5 kids. it was a match made in heaven. we sat and talked for nearly 6 hours.
it’s now time to head to the airport.
my stomach is all a-flutter again. we didn’t really clarify what we were doing…did he like me? i certainly liked him, but i didn’t want to make a move. so, i waited.
as we are saying our good-byes at the airport, he utters his famous last words “well, we’ll see what happens“.
mmmm, excuse me?
what the heck does that mean?
tears well up, but i suck it up and proudly agree that “yes, we’ll see what happens”.
i board the plane…my stomach is no longer all a-flutter.
i really liked mr. anderson, but apparently he wasn’t so sure.
was it something i said? was it my old lady grandma shoes that i was wearing? was it the fact that i insisted on showing him my rather large muscles? was he intimidated by those muscles?
what was it?
as i sat on the airplane, i started thinking about if i should just email him as soon as i got home…or should i wait for him to email me. everything in me wanted to wait for him to make the first move, but goodness, we all know how long boys take to call you and i just couldn’t wait.
so, i went against everything inside of me, and sent the first email.
here’s what i wrote: (we printed all of our emails, so this is really the first email i sent him!)
hey nerd…..how’s everything going? okay, so i know that probably according to the “boy meets girl” rules, i’m not supposed to email you first….but, i was just wanting to see if y’all made it home okay. right after i saw you by the security, i got stopped by this security guard….he was like “ma’am, i need to check your bag again”…i’m thinking, “what is going on”…then he said “you’re going to need to come with me” and he escorted me to this back office and these police men were there and they started questioning me…..okay, so i’m totally lying. none of that happened. i just wanted to remind you how funny i am.
welp, i hope all is well in california…i’m going to bed fairly soon, cause for some reason i barely got any sleep this weekend….hmmmmm.
hope you’re having a great day….or night….whenever you get this! talk to you soon….em
clearly i liked writing ……………. the dots are overwhelming in that email. and i had to throw a little humor in there, so he didn’t think i was just being psycho.
and well, apparently that email worked, cause i got a phone call the next day from him! and guess what? he decided to fly out to KS to visit me—and he was coming in like a week!
holy cow. i loved this man already.
i told my best friends about him and my weekend. and instead of saying “em, seriously. you just met this kid”…they were actually really excited for me. (jami used this situation in her maid of honor speech at my wedding—she said “yah, emily came back from orlando and she’s all ‘here, i got you this coffee mug….and i got me a boyfriend”….ummmm. well, yah, kind of.)
i told those girls that “i met the boy i’m going to marry”….and it turns out that keith went home and told his roommates that if he could have married me that weekend, he would have. WHAT?!
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so, he comes to visit…and this is crucial for us. we have a great time together…and decide to make it official. he meets my family (i can only imagine what my dad was thinking—-oh man…this boy has flown all the way from california to see my daughter—yikes!) and from there it’s long distance dating. we got to see each other once a month and then in august, we got engaged (we started dating in february). we were driving down the coast of california, and we pulled over in monterey bay…there is this amazing cross on the beach…and underneath that cross, he asked me to be his wife.
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in december, mr. anderson graduates from college, minus an afro:
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he moves to kansas and we are married in april.
i was 21 and he was 22.
and from there, the rest is history:
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  12. that pic of keith. L to the O to the L…sweet little asian.

    glad you guys found eachother. i remember it all too clear…one thing i remember most is that i was so thankful God put him in your life.

    love you.

  13. I am loving these stories! It's like my daily dose of romatic comedies. But I don't have to take the time to watch a whole movie. 🙂

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