We were both starting preschool when we became friends. Our earliest memories are playing outside during recess, or coloring each other pictures during free time. We became best friends, and gave each other ring pops and promised each other we would be best friends forever. I still have that ring pop. We went on to elementary school, but sadly districting split us up and she was at one and I was at another school. Our families were such good friends so we still saw each other every weekend at the playground, our houses or the beach, our favorite spot. As we grew older, we grew apart. Best friends turned into friends. She went on to high school and was the popular star athlete who had all the attention, and I was the more reserved one who kept to myself. I would still see her every once in awhile at family functions, but it was never the same. It wasn’t until junior year of high school that I realized I liked her, more than friends, more than best friends but I knew I could never tell her. Why would she want a guy like me? Senior year of high school I started to think to myself if I don’t tell her now, I will never have a chance and she will go to college and never look back. So I did it, I told her. I asked her if she wanted to get dinner one night, and she said of course because well to her we were just friends. At the end of the night I told her how I felt and she sat in silence. I could tell what she was about to say, and I knew I wouldn’t like. We went onto college. We had our separate lives and I was okay with that, but she was still always my first love. I hadn’t see her in about four years until one day I ran into her over christmas break at the grocery store. It was then all my feelings came back, and I fell in love all over again. Shortly after this we started texting again, and calling each other. Five minute phone calls would turn into hours, and friends was becoming best friends again. That next summer, we both were graduated and living at home, she asked me if I wanted to get dinner with her. And at the end of the night, she pulled out something out of her pocket and handed it to me. It was the ring pop I once gave to her years ago. She asked me if I was willing to give her a chance. How could I not say yes? So we dated, and we dated well. We both got jobs, were living on our own and were enjoying life. We were serious. On March 5th, 2009 I asked her to marry me. It was the best day of my life, besides the day I met her. It is now six years later, and we are expecting our second child. Im sharing this story with you about my wife because I think theres a message behind it. Never give up on love, whatever is meant to be will find a way.

Sincerely,

The luckiest guy in the world

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I found this assignment to be kind of hard for me. I am not good at creative writing, or writing in general so I had trouble trying to come up with some random love story. Once I did, I just kept typing and going with it. I think my strong suit is definitely in the visual aspects! Overall tho creating the assignment was easy. I just embedded my image through Flickr and then wrote freely.

When you think of love stories you think of alters and wedding bells. Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Boy and girl get married and are together forever and ever. But for some reason when I was supposed to choose a “Love at First Shot” this was the photo that came to mind. Here’s this special love story.

On October 15, 2015, they came together for the first time. It was their first basketball practice of the year. Some faces were new to the crew; some had been there for years. It was time to take on the new dynamic. Everyone had to learn the plays, learn their place, but most importantly learn each other.

They spent every moment together to accomplish this because they all shared a common goal, to be the best. Through countless hours of literal blood, sweat, and tears they came together. Through countless hours of dinner dates and movie nights they came together. Through countless hours of study hall and tutoring sessions they came together.

After all this hard work, this team came together. It wasn’t always perfect. They lost some games. They had to adjust some of their ways and open up to new things. Ultimately, the definitely won more than they lost, and not just on the basketball court, though they were very successful there.

They won because they had 12 other best friends, sisters, teammates. It was such a special bond. It was true love. 12 people to have your back no matter what, 12 people to dance with, 12 people to talk to, 12 people to road trip with, 12 people to go into battle with and12 people to go through every inch of life with, good or bad.

And isn’t that what love is all about?

Assignment Link:

http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/love-at-first-shot/

Riza and Tate are sitting in their dinning room, enjoying mashed potatoes with a side of broccoli when all of a sudden, Dingo, their German Shepard mix, accidentally turns around, and with a whip of his tail knocks over their photo box. Riza and Tate look at each other and instantaneously both start laughing.

“Don’t worry about. I’ll clean it up.” Says Tate while taking Riza’s hand in his.
“Thank you, but you cooked dinner and it was delicious so I suppose I’ll clean it up.”
“If you insist,” says Tate while calling Dingo over.
“Good boy… good boy,” murmurs Tate while handing Dingo his last piece of steak.

Riza stands up and walks across the ice cold floor into their living room. The smell of the wooden cabin reminds her of the saloon and she decides to pour herself a drink before picking up the photos. Once she bends over to pick up the photos, she gasps, spilling a drop off wine onto the cold floor beneath her.

“My gosh– Tate — get in here. Quick!” Exclaims Riza as she puts her drink down. Tate runs into the room faster than his heart can skip a beat and holds Riza.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Asks Tate holding her in his arms. Riza turns around releasing herself from his embrace and says, “Remember that photo I was looking for?”

“Uh– no.” Says Tate releasing a sigh of relief.
“That one from our wedding?”
“Oh, yes! What about it?”
“Well I might have just found it!” Exclaims Riza as she reveals the photo from behind her back. Tate takes it in his hand to get a better look at it and a smile crosses his face. 

“My gosh, Riza!”
“I can’t believe that was 20 years ago. I was so young and beautiful.”
“You still are. You will always be young and beautiful to me.”

I found this image on google images and thought it matched perfectly to continue my story of Riza and Tate. I decided to create a story around the image and to incorporate my Western created characters. 

One of the visual assignments we were required to complete this week was the “Love at first shot” assignment. I chose this picture because it seemed that these two people really loved each other and the photo also captures the beauty of nature surrounding the couple. It also seems like it could be a picture worth a thousand words and have a good story behind it. So, for this assignment I decided to interject a creative story into the meaning of this photo.

This bench is located between 5th and 7th avenue in a small little town in Oklahoma. The sidewalk is used heavily, given it is one of the main routes for kids walking to and from school every day. Annabeth (girl in picture) and John (boy in picture) walked this route all through their years of elementary, middle, and high school. It wasn’t until the last week of high school that they met. John had been riding his bike on the sidewalk and it had been raining and he had crashed near the bench. Annabeth had been running late that day to school (unusual for Annabeth) and saw him lying on the ground. She quickly ran over to see what the problem was and saw he was badly hurt, so she called the ambulance. She stayed there with him until the ambulance came and took him away. A week later, at graduation he came up to her and thanked her for her help. He realized how beautiful she was and asked her out. Coincidentally, they had picked the same college to attend and continued dating the next four years. But, when graduation came Annabeth decided she wanted to go to medical school in Florida and John had been accepted into his dream school to get his masters in Washington. They were worried about their relationship and if they would be able to sustain it even though they would be far apart. So, with heavy hearts they both decided it would be best to break it off, allowing them to focus on their studies. So, the years passed and they both graduated successfully, but they would often think about each other. The following holiday season they both (not knowing the other had) traveled home to Oklahoma to visit family. The day before Thanksgiving Annabeth realized she was missing quite a few ingredients so she had to walk to the store and on her way back her bag ripped and all of her food fell to the ground. She was very upset and quickly began picking up all of her purchases. While in her haste she didn’t realize someone else was helping her pick up things and when she looked up, there was John. So, they sat down on the bench to talk about the previous years and how much they missed each other. They went on to get married and moved back to that small town in Oklahoma not far from 5th and 7th avenue where they can still walk together to the store and other places in town. Always passing the bench that they walked by so many times for so many years, where Annabeth first helped and met John, and where they were reunited.