EmilyI was invited to the Live Oak Beer Festival by my friend Lesley Patterson (now baby mama Rodriguez!) one sunny Saturday afternon. While there, I met one of Lesley's aquaintances, Kelsey, who later invited me to meet up with some of her friends at Campbell's Hole (a great swimming hole) with my dog Lucy. I ran home to get my pup, but halfway over to the greenbelt, Kelsey called and said there was a change of plans and that I should meet her up at her friend Leslie Jesko's house instead. I was a bit hesitant since I had Lucy, but Kelsey assured me that the people at this house loved dogs.
I nervously knocked on the door, and who should answer but a vaguely familiar girl and a defnitely familiar wookie dog. "I think I know your dog," I said stupidly to the girl. "Um, yeah, I think I know your dog, too," she said. Turns out, this was Leslie Jesko herself, who was my best friend Jenna's other best friend. In fact, Leslie and Mr. Beasley had even been in my apartment several times when Jenna and I lived together a few years back. I ended up sticking around for several hours with this bunch of folks, where I said a brief "Hello" to Dave, Lelise's roommate, as he cooked up a storm in the kitchen (a theme for years to come). As I began to hang out more with the group, I got to know Dave a little bit more each time. 
In case you don't already know, Dave is a pretty gosh-darn persistent guy, and his goofy charm eventually won me over. We started hanging out one-on-one -- first using dogs as an excuse, then Austin Film Festival screeners -- before just accepting the fact that we were dating. And then one Saturday night I realized that all I wanted to do was nom on Twizzlers and watch movies with Dave instead of my usual dowtown routine, which was when I knew I had fallen for him.Fast-forward 3.5 years later, and we have one beatiful house, two goober-headed dogs and four shifty-eyed cats. Oh, and two guppies. It's a bit of a zoo, but we laugh all the time. In fact, nothing is really taken seriously in our household, including proposal (you'll notice Lefty drinkng Dave's champagne in the background):
Dave
So there I was, minding my own business, when this adorable blonde shows up in my back yard like a lost puppy crashing a party…
Actually, the story is a bit more complicated than that, but it’s a good enough place to start. It was 2007, and I had been living in Austin for a little under a year with my roommate Beasley, and his owner Leslie Jesko, trying to survive as best I could on a film festival salary. As was often the case in those early years in Austin, my house was full of old college friends hanging out and talking about how funny we used to be.
As we were trying to figure out what we were going to do with our day, Leslie got a text from her friend Lesley Patterson, who let us know that Live Oak Brewery was having a 10th anniversary BBQ and handing out free beer and food all afternoon. Naturally, we were out the door before Leslie finished reading the text. Of course, by the time we got there, the place was out of food, and the beer line was snaking around the block. We decided to cut our losses and head back to our place for a BBQ of our own. We left Leslie in charge of rounding up the troops, and Commie Ryan and I headed off to the store for beer and brats.I have always appreciated Leslie’s ability to make a party out of any situation, so Ryan and I were not at all surprised to see a few more cars parked around my house when we returned. Of course, the only person I noticed when we got out back was the new girl, hanging out on the back porch with her dog, mingling with everyone, and making herself the life of the party (a role I later learned she was very used to playing.) That first day she caught my eye, but I have to admit, I didn’t really spend much time talking to her, as most of my time was spent playing host and manning the grill. Though I thought she was charming, gorgeous, and quick with a joke, I never got the nerve to ask for her number, and as the night ended, I was sure I’d never see her again.
A few days later, Leslie and I head over to our friend Ray’s 80’s themed birthday party. It was then that I realized my concept of an 80’s theme was quite different from Ray and his friends’. I showed up in my best 80’s prep attire, complete with popped collar, sweatbands, and knock-off Rayban Wayfarers, and found a house full of kids dressed as extras from a music video for The Cure. Clearly, I was a fish out of water. I was just about to leave when I spotted a familiar adorable blonde across the room, resplendent in bangle earrings, teased hair, and a denim jacket, a John Hughes character in the middle of a goth club. We spent the rest of the evening keeping each other company, making 80’s references that no one else got, and talking about the upcoming Reggae Fest on Auditorium Shores. At the end of the night, as I was leaving, she called out to me, and put her number into my phone “just in case I decided to go to the concert next weekend,” she said. I, of course, took this as a clear sign that she was in to me.
Granted, it took her a little longer for her to admit it to herself.
We spent the next several weeks finding any excuse we could to hang out with each other – friends’ birthday parties, trips to the park with the dogs, group movie nights where no one else showed up – and eventually, friends at the festival started wondering who this person was who was taking up all my time at work chatting on the internet. Then one night, while having yet another house party at our place, Emily decided to learn the old bartender’s trick of blowing fire with Bacardi 151. I realized pretty quickly after that that she was the real deal, and I haven’t looked back since. 