On the cold and rainy night of October 23rd, 2004 our paths crossed for the first time... Matt, the ever-faithful Utah fan was braving the cold to watch his football Utes beat
UNLV that frigid night, while
Coreena, the Utah State Aggie cheerleader, was in town from Logan and attending the game with some friends. Matt's friend had a friend who was dating a friend of
Coreena's...are you following? All of these friends were at the game together. After the game Matt's friend invited him to hangout with the group at
Coreena's friends house. At the end of the night Matt and his friend took
Coreena home. As they pulled into her driveway Matt's friend said to
Coreena "We should all hangout again sometime. What's your number?" Matt, in the backseat
slyly entered the digits in his own phone as
she rattled off her number. A week or two later he made the call and asked
Coreena for a date...she agreed, a wonderful time was had on the date, and a small spark was born... This happened another 4 or 5 times before the rush of school, tests, projects, practices and the distance between Logan and Salt Lake brought the spark to a slight fizzle. Their paths strayed from each other for a few years as
Coreena earned a degree at Utah State and served a mission in upstate New York while Matt earned his degree at the U and began a career as an animator. Then in December of 2008 another of Matt's friends had gone on a few dates with
Coreena's sister, who happened to be in Matt's ward, and one night they invited Matt to come get hot chocolate at Village Inn with a group of friends.
Coreena, recently returned from her mission, was part of the group. After hot chocolate Matt asked for
Coreena's number and a few weeks later he called to ask her out.
Coreena, who was dating someone at the time, didn't answer Matt's call and responded with a text saying she couldn't go. Matt taking that as "I'm not interested" moved on with no intention of trying again...although he did one more time...and got denied again. A few months later in May,
Coreena and her sister decided to move into a new condo. Needing assistance with the move they called upon their
home teachers, who happened to be Matt's roommates...who happened to ask Matt to help them. After helping with the move
Coreena told Matt, thank you and "we should hangout sometime". Matt, seeing this as a hint decided to give it another chance and asked her out again. This time she said yes and that small spark from five years ago returned and blossomed. And the rest as they say, is history.