This blog post is for you hunters' wives (and other readers) to hear how I, myself, became a hunter's wife. It’s a crazy story full of God things and the outdoors. Jay has been a true gift from God. I honestly never knew a man like him actually existed in this world. So here I go, about to divulge my entire love story to the whole world. I hope you enjoy!
My whole life Jay and I lived about twenty minutes away from each other. We both grew up going to Cameron County where we each had a camp. I often wonder how many times Jay and I passed each other throughout our childhood without ever realizing that we just passed the future love of our life.
Around October of 2014 a Jay Stern friend requested me on Facebook. While the profile picture was very attractive, I knew nothing about the boy, so the friend request went unanswered for about two months. Then one night I was scrolling through my friend requests and asked my mom (I was still under her roof meaning her rules (11th grade)) if I could accept the friend request. I had to check with mutual friends to make sure this Jay guy wasn’t a total creep. Turns out he was pretty normal and a nice guy (according to my research). I then accepted the request and all was well for a while. Eventually, I posted a photo of my buck and doe I got in rifle season and Jay messaged me saying something like "It's pretty cool for a girl like you to like the outdoors and hunt". Thus began the contact.
What I didn’t tell you however was that Jay didn’t just somehow "find" me on Facebook. One of the guys my dad and myself would hunt with apparently worked with Jay. With Jay being the total outdoorsman that he is and this guy knowing how much I loved the outdoors, he suggested for Jay to look me up. So when I say that the outdoors is a major part of our relationship, I'm being 100% serious. We would have never known each other existed if it wasn’t for this mutual friend or love for the wilderness.
Soon we go on our first date and all goes well. Jay looks ridiculously attractive and large (that was the year he was bulking for baseball). We had a good conversation over some pizza and then bickered about who would win the basketball game between our two schools. While sitting in the bleachers, my x comes over and decides to sit no more than ten feet away from us. I later find out that Jay knew he was my x (from his friend) and somehow it didn’t manage to scare him away.
Come February of 2015, Jay and I had been hanging out and talking for a few months. He then asked me to go out on a date with him on Valentine's Day, to which I happily agreed. However, there was a HUGE snowstorm that made driving almost impossible. I was honestly shocked when Jay arrived at my door instead of choosing to cancel. This guy had spunk! He then took me out to dinner at a local restaurant and we stopped to get ice cream but they were closed. While in the parking lot of the closed ice cream shop, pulled out a bag for my Valentine's Day gift. In it was a batch of cookies he made himself (later I confronted him, asking if he really made them or if it was his mom. He replied "so you really think my mom's cookies would have been that hard?"). There was also a card that I was not expecting. I remember the actual card said something about fairy farts and I was so confused. Jay just stated that he knew I didn't like the lovey-dovey stuff and figured he'd go with something funny. But what he wrote on the inside of my card was, by far, the best part of the whole evening. It went something like this:
"Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Cookies are sweet,
and so are you.
Although you like Realtree,
and I like Mossy Oak,
if you'd be my girlfriend,
I'd be stoked?"
It was probably one of the sweetest things that anyone had ever done for me up to this point. We had constantly bickered about which camo was better and why we should use the other one instead. I loving Realtree and being stubborn, refused to switch over and Jay was infatuated with Mossy Oak. So that was how we started dating.
Soon after came Jay's prom proposal. I had told him when we started dating that I did NOT want to go to prom but with it being his last year of high school I think he was just hoping I'd go anyway. Jay had asked me to go shed hunting with him (which I had never done before) so I was really excited to try it out. All you do is hike through the woods looking for antlers that the deer have shed.
He picked me up and we headed to the woods. We walked around for quite a while and sometimes Jay would even think he saw some blood from the pedicle of a buck. Eventually we'd get to a pine tree and Jay says "Courtney, I have to go to the bathroom. Why don't you go look under the pine tree? Deer like to bed under them." So, being the oblivious blonde that I am, I had no clue that he was setting me up and I waltz on over to the pine tree and sure enough I see a shed. Not putting two and two together, my heart starts racing as I realize that I found my first ever shed. But as soon as I walk up to the shed, I see "Prom?" written on it. I immediately go from excited to devastated and torn. I don’t want to go to prom, but it is Jay's senior year, and I say yes. In that moment, I knew things were serious. Before I would have NEVER said yes to something like prom, but I just liked him so much.
And so our story began…. and it will continue until we are old and grey, because all those years ago, we pinky promised.
If you liked the beginning of us, stay tuned for more about our amazing story of a hunter and his wife.
Always,
A hunter's wife,
Courtney
P.S. I wrote this blog post to show all of you ladies, out there, that I knew going into this relationship that hunting would be a MAJOR part of it. But IT IS STILL HARD TO DEAL WITH! It's still not easy to be home alone days on end holding down the house while your man is only who knows where tramping through the mountains. It is not easy! But that is why I wrote this blog, so we wives don't feel alone!
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