Yes, this is exceptionally long. But it is really well done. You might not be able to watch it today, or tomorrow. But if you get a chance, sit down to listen to Randy Pausch give his very last lecture.

I think Irene in particular will enjoy this challenge.

JonAbad and Emily are getting Married!

Below is Emily’s description of how they met:

How we met…Emily’s version of the story.

So my version of the story is a long one…I can’t seem to tell the story without it being a long story so here it is.

In September 2006 I moved into an apartment with my 2 roommate, Maggie and Nina in Dorchester. We all sat down the night we moved in and I was told that they would both be moving in with their boyfriends a year from then so I basically had to find a place to stay in September 2007.

When I was talking to my brother Andrew in November he told me about his friends from WPI named Tyler Leeds and Jon Abad who lived in Somerville and who might be looking for a new roommate in September 2007. I didn’t have internet access at that time because my laptop was old and so I told him when I had time in the spring I’d see about writing to them and seeing if they still needed a roommate.

So at that time I figured I had a long time to find a new apartment but once it hit March of 2007 I started to get nervous (yeah I know…I had 8 months to find an apartment but I wanted to be ready!) so I went out and bought a new laptop, called Andrew and got Tyler’s email and sent him an email to see if he still needed a roommate.

I got an email back a few days later from Tyler saying that he was busy at work and couldn’t really respond to my email at that time but he sent it on to Jon. So then a few days later I got an email from Jon and he said that the roommate position was still open and that we should meet to see if it was a good fit. So we planned to meet at the end of March.

He also answered all the questions I had asked in and Tyler about in the first email about the apartment and area and normal roommate questions. But then I had more and more questions and over the next few days he answered them all. So then I was curious…if we were going to possibly roommates one day who was Jon Abad, how did he know Andrew, what did he study at school and where did he come from.

I first wrote to Jon a few days before St. Patrick’s Day and when it finally came to the end of March it hit me one day that Jon and I had been writing back and forth to each other everyday for almost 3 weeks. I would wake up every morning and open an email from Jon and come home from work at night and send him an email back.

I’m not talking about like hey how was work, I’m doing good emails. Some times it would take me 3 hours to write them and would be several pages long, with everything from 20 questions to more detailed aspects of our lives and it never occurred to me that I was asking questions that were too personal because all along I was thinking these were questions that in being roommates I would find out anyways.

So it surprised me when it came to be the date when I was going to be finally meeting Jon that I was so very nervous! Was it a date? Was it just a meeting? Would Jon be thinking it was a date? Why was I thinking it was a date when we never talked about it and we were just meeting to see if being roommates would be plausible? But I was nervous because I really liked Jon. He never made me feel stupid when I asked him questions about his job and things that I was curious about and he was really sweet in answering my 3 page emails all of the time and stayed up very late answering them all and every question I had so I could wake up to one in the morning.

When I got to Jon’s apartment I was surprised that Tyler was there but it was good because it kind of made things easier for Jon and I with someone else there and we could both play it off like it was just a roommate meeting and I wasn’t so worried. That’s a lie because of course I was worried and nervous and scared out of my mind but there was nothing I could do about it because after we all went to dinner and walked to Harvard Square and back I realized that as Jon and I were sitting in the bar waiting for Tyler to bring us our drinks that I was in love with him and so my fear at that time was is Jon going to want to see me again after this and we can’t be roommates because I want to spend more time with him and it would be bad if we were roommates.

But my fears disappeared when I got an email the next day from him wondering the same thing I was wondering…did I think it was a date and because Tyler was there was it really a date and did we want to go on a date and how was I thinking the night went? So then we decided to meet up again a week later. It was going to be our date but it’s not really a date but a pre date to see if we wanted to go on a first date and maybe date later. It wasn’t as complicated as it sounds like now but looking back we never really had a real first date that we can pinpoint as our first date so this was our first serious time out being Jon and Emily and not Emily the maybe roommate one day.

And then it went from there. We started hanging out more often and decided that we couldn’t be roommates and we wanted to see where things went from then on. On April 15th Jon asked me to be his girlfriend and we’ve been together ever since. We spent Thanksgiving in Houston Texas with his family and had a great time then Christmas with my family. (We’ve had many other adventures together and apart…I went to Paris in August which was very hard because we had never been apart for more than 2 days and though I had a great time I missed him very much…but you can look at the pictures and see some of those adventures).

So from the beginning I knew that I was going to marry Jon. My mom always said when you know you know and I knew the moment I met Jon, even before as we were writing back and forth but I didn’t know it then, that he was the one for me. I haven’t kept it a secret from Jon that I’ve wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and up until January of 2008 he never said anything to me until we were talking one day about my healthcare and he told me that he wanted to marry me and I was so happy and excited and

One day (January 12th) we were out shopping and I asked Jon what was one of the things he really wanted to do this year. Last year we had planned on going to Disney World this year but because I changed jobs we weren’t going to be able to do it until September. So as I was thinking about it that night while making dinner I thought well why don’t we get married in Disney? Jon and I had talked about a small wedding, we both love Disney and it would be so easy to have our wedding there.

Again I was nervous to ask Jon because I was basically asking him to marry me and jumping the gun but I couldn’t help myself and I asked him what he thought. He loved the idea and so later that night Jon asked me to marry him and of course I said yes and then the next day we called our families, checked out the Disney Wedding’s website and by Monday, January 14th had the wedding booked for Friday, September 19th at the Sea Breeze Resort in Disney World!!!!

I love Jon so very much. He means so much to me and he’s such a special guy! He makes me laugh and is very supportive, he can cook, (more than just mac and cheese from a box and cereal!), he’s a great listener, he pushes me to be my very best when I need a little push because I’m a little stubborn (OK maybe I’m very stubborn) and he makes me so happy! I’m really blessed that I found Jon and I’m going to be spending my life with him. :)

So that’s about enough from me! I know it was long…but that’s my story from start to finish. Thanks for sharing this very special moment with us!

Emily

Congratulations guys! That’s awesome!!

Meet Darcy. She works in Irene’s lab. She invented something called Sweater Thursday. Let’s join in the fun tomorrow by all wearing sweaters. Take a picture of your sweater self and send it to me: mikedidonato AT gmail D0T com. I’ll pass it over to Darcy and we’ll all be one fun internet community of sweater wearing people.

This is an amazingly fun video.