My version of the Nate story

This is Nate: 

I had met Nate in one of those random ways in which all of a sudden your world turns off kilter and everything changes. I had just moved to the area and started swimming and playing ultimate frisbee in order to meet new people. I had been here for about 2 months and was asked to go to a tournament. I had asked the person that asked me to go to the tourney for a ride since I knew nothing about New England. They said 'yes' and gave me the address to their house where I would meet up with them and 3 other guys to ride to Vermont. I got stuck sitting in between Nate (who I had never met) and Guy (who I also never met) in the back seat of an Audi for 2 hours. Mike drove and Rick sat shotgun. These 4 guys had been friends for years and sat there and joked around most of the time. Then Nate brought out an outdoor gear magazine/catalog. I want to say it was a Mountain Hardware catalog, but I'm not 100% on that one. I asked him if he liked to camp and he said, 'yeah, sorta.' Then I asked him if he liked to ski or snowboard and he said, 'yes'. I asked him if he liked to surf and he said, 'yes'. He was an amazing conversationalist back then too.. :-) I then was like, 'can we be friends because I want to learn how to snowboard and surf?' I don't think Nate knew or knows how to deal with overly-forward girls so I think he was really scared by the friendship request (this was before the days of Facebook) and he was like, 'yeah, sure... whatever'. We got to the tournament and played and kinda went our separate ways... except that I believe Nate got hurt at the tourney and since I wasn't getting a lot of playing time since I was new to the group and he was hurt, I think we talked a bit more, but nothing crazy.

Fast forward a few months, I was still playing frisbee and swimming and still trying to meet people in this cold land that I have learned to call home. I get this random group email from Nate with a picture of Sunday River getting dumped on and the email said, 'Who wants to go skiing?'. I instantly emailed him back and was like, 'I do!  I do! But remember, I don't know how so can you teach me yet?' .... and silence...

Fast forward another month or two, I decided to play indoor frisbee during the winter because I still didn't know how to ski or snowboard and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all these cold months. I went to play pickup and Nate shows up one day. I was sitting on the bench and he sits down near me and says, 'Nice cankles'... yeah, this guy... he's got a way with words!!!

So let's fast forward though all the complicated stuff and bumpy parts in our lives and get closer to today. Nate and I have been living together for over 5 years and the boy is just as amazing as ever. He puts up with sooo much crap from me (and many others) and just keeps on taking it and typically doesn't seem phased by how much poo he's really taking. Last night, he had to witness one of my classic PMS/Sick/Tired reactions where my fuse was only about 1 centimeter long and once it was lit, there was no turning back. I exploded on him, unfortunately. There was nothing he could do to prevent it, there was nothing he could do to get out of the way, and there was nothing he could to make it better. So, he waited until I was calm, cool, collected, and the irrational train had finally reached the station and I jumped off. I try to tell him how sorry that I really am, but it's not something I necessarily can control (girls, you get me... guys... well... sorry, it's something we can't explain nor stop from happening. You either love us, or you don't!). So, since I have a blog, I'll publicly tell you all about how awesome this character really is with some of my favorite Nater Potater pictures!!

This is Nate with my new puppy Oakley. Oakley was terrified of the water. Nate was testing out these new boards called "Stand-up Paddle Boards" and wanted to take it to the pond. I insisted that my new puppy come along with us. So my overly patient boyfriend took my new puppy onto the board with him while she shook and shook and paddled her around the pond. Did I mention that Nate is not the hugest fan of dogs? Reason #1679908 why this young man should be sainted!!! :) 

Oh, look at that again... Nate and Jenny and the dang dog that Jenny insists goes everywhere with us... Look, Nate is smiling even though he now has to share his time with a dang dog that Jenny insists goes everywhere with us!! It's getting better! I don't drag the dogs with us EVERYWHERE we go and Nate is WAY more accepting of taking the uber hyper dogs places and even will do activities with the dogs when I am away!! 

This is the super talented Nater on his surfboard. He doesn't have a pro contract or anything like that but he absolutely loves to surf and has some serious style. 

He even likes to take pictures with me where I'm pretty much strangling him and doing the whole self-portrait thing! 

One of the surfing photographers, Ralph, took the picture below and the picture two above of Nate. Nate got a whole disk of the series of pictures and I went and I blew the pictures up and made them poster size. Then Nate's dad made frames for them. Then I made Nate hang the pictures in our dining room in our new house. Nate is a little bit bashful and expressed numerous times that he did not want pictures of himself hanging up in the dining room. I told him to think of it as surf art and that if he had to that it was someone else surfing. Except when everyone comes over, I make sure to point out that they are pictures of Nate surfing. He has threatened to have pictures taken of me and put up somewhere in the house, but thankfully, I'm not graceful at anything and there are no pictures of me hanging up anywhere in the house. 

This is one of my favorites because it was from one of those trips where when Nate said, 'let's ride our bikes through Washington DC', I thought he was completely nuts. I was like, 'this is a big city. we can't just ride our mountain bikes all around'... Well, sure you can... and you end up seeing WAY more things via bike then you do walking and when it's the Fourth of July in Washington DC and it's over 90 degrees and there are a million people EVERYWHERE, it's the BEST way to see DC. You get a nice breeze and you can just scoot around everyone. He has a tendency to push me out of my box and help me think around the picture. He's good like that!! 

I love this picture for two reasons. 1) It shows off Nate's silly side! It's not seen that often but he can be super silly. 2) It was also one of those times where Nate pushed me out of my little box. We have a small ski hill near our house. It had snowed all day long and as you can tell from the picture, it was still snowing. Nate was like, 'get your snowboard stuff together, we are going to hit powderhouse'. I looked at him and was like, 'uh... what?' He said it again and I was like, 'ok, crazy, let's go'... This opened up a whole new world of hiking for our turns for me. We lapped the little hill probably 5 times. I was completely gassed but it was sooo much fun to make fresh tracks each time. 

He's incredibly sexy with his blue eyes that match his tie!! 

And then there's this... :) 

Nater Potater, thank you for being my best friend, my rock and the guy that pushes me to go places I never imagined I would go or do things I never imagined that I would do! Thank you for teaching me how to surf and to snowboard and be a better mountain biker. Thank you for doing all these things with me even if I huff and puff. Thank you for being patient with me and putting up with me on all the good and bad occasions!!! 

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!