So, today I went to my friend, Julie’s bridal shower. I am so excited for her! She is marrying an amazing guy named Andrew and they are just adorable together. They actually dated all through high school and then went their separate ways for college. Years later, fate brought them both to Nashville, TN (which is pretty crazy because they are from Oklahoma!). They started dating again in May of this year and now they are getting married on the 27th!

I was thinking about all of the crazy ways people end up meeting each other. My parents met when they were 16 years old at a campsite in the Florida Keys. My mom is from Canada and my father is from Buffalo, NY so it is pretty remarkable they met in Southern Florida. They ended up dating long-distance and then getting married when they were 19 years old. And now they have been together for 29 years!

But there I was, sitting in the hotel lobby in Beijing China. I was pretty antsy to start the game and meet all the strangers that were surrounding me. I kept counting the number of people in the room and there were only about 9 of us so I knew a few were still missing. Then he walked in. I couldn’t help but stare. He was gorgeous, his long brown curly hair was perfect and he had his guitar case in his hand. I wasn’t allowed to speak to him, I didn’t even know his name, but immediately I knew there was something special about him. I referred to him as “Dierks” in my journal because he reminded me of Dierks Bentley. I was such a dork, I actually prayed every night before we started that he would end up on my tribe. One of my first memories of him still makes me laugh. We were all eating breakfast, still not allowed to communicate with each other, and Erik sat there cutting out every yolk from his eggs. I kept laughing to myself. Here we were, about to get stuck on a deserted island without any food, and he was worried about the egg yolks… I still give him a hard time about it. But I will be honest, I thought it was adorable and still do! haha

I will never forget the first time we were able to speak to each other. We were walking up hundreds of stairs to the Buddhist Temple to start our adventure. I said “Hey, I am Jaime and I am from Spartanburg South Carolina!” He turned to me with surprised look on his face and told me he was born and raised in Greenville, SC. I was shocked, here we were in the middle of nowhere in China and we grew up 25 miles from each other. I knew it was a sign and it was a huge relief that someone from back home was going to be sharing this crazy experience with me. It was a whole lot easier to trust him knowing that if he did anything mean, I could go home, drive to his parent’s house and tell his mama!

Then my prayers were answered. We were both on the Zhan Hu tribe. Every since then we became the best of friends.