People are intrigued by our story. It is unique in so many ways. About 9 years ago I was in College at WSU and Scott was living in Christchurch. I was on my friend Preeti’s computer whom lived a crossed the hallway from me in our dorm. I frequently used her chatting program called ICQ to chat with my sister to help save on the cost of our phone bills. One evening in Early January 1998 I decided to scan through the other ICQ members just for fun when I saw a person, code name Lightning from New Zealand. I thought it would be fascinating to chat with someone from there. I had never met anyone from New Zealand before. We became fast friends and soon we chatted most days.

In May school was over so I headed home. We had no internet there so we chatted infrequently, but occasionally we would call each other. On my 20th birthday I received a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses (the friendship color of rose). I was so taken aback because I had never had flowers delivered to me before, but I loved it. We decided I should come and visit and so I went ahead and applied for a passport. While waiting for my passport detail to be processed I had a job interview. I had decided to forgo my schooling for the time and pursue a career in the travel industry. My job interview for a flight attendant position went very well and I was hired that same day. I called Scott as soon as I could and told him of the news. He was very happy for me but I think there was a pang of disappointment because we knew I would not be visiting as soon as we both would have liked.

A week after my interview I was in Dallas training and we talked very infrequently. I wrote when I could which basically was at hotels that offered an internet service which was rare back then. Eventually we lost touch. . I did not have a computer and I eventually lost my email account for not checking my email enough and with it I lost all of my contacts in my address book. Occasionally I would be on a computer and I would try to do a search for him, but I quickly learned there are a million Scott Ferguson’s in the world and would quit at my frustration for having lost his email in the first place.

Several years later, we both hit a low point in our lives, not knowing the other was in the same type of position. We both had severed relationships that we had hoped would turn out for the better. I was living in Florida counting the days until I moved closer to my family in Washington when I received an email from my father. He sent me a forward from Scott. He had been looking for me on line and found my father so he wrote to him in hopes he would pass his email along to me. I was so excited the day I received the email. I immediately replied and we quickly caught our selves up. I was pretty gloomy before I had heard from him so this helped pull me out of the pit I felt I had fallen in.

I moved home and our friendship grew. We became best friends telling each other most of our thoughts and feelings on many subjects. We always joked how we should get married and one day it would be in Hawaii.

In 2005 I had a hard year with several deaths of friends and family members and a surgery that put me out of work for over a month. Scott was always there for me though. Even though he could not hold my hand or give me a shoulder to cry on he sent me flowers and called me frequently. When I had my surgery we stayed up every night talking on our web cams to each other. I had been planning to go to Australia for a wedding the coming January and we thought maybe we could meet up then, but the wedding plans changed so the trip was off.

Some time during my recovery, I decided I was going to go anyway. Why not?! So Scott and I started to plan our trip. I took a month off in February and flew to New Zealand. He was just like I knew he would be. He was my best friend! On Valentines day he took me to a beautiful seaside restaurant and he told me he was in love with me, which suited me perfectly because I knew I had loved him a long time. We traveled though New Zealand and flew over to Australia for beach get-away.
Then I was gone.

I flew home and my heart sunk. I knew I could not be away from him long or I was sure my heart would break into a million tiny pieces. So I flew back again in June. This time I knew it was real and we started to think of our future together more seriously. In September Scott flew to Seattle to meet my family. They got along famously! Scott and my Dad had a serious talk, and I cannot assume any other than it went well, because a few days later Scott was down on one knee at the top of the Space Needle asking me to marry him. “A 100 yes’s,” was my reply because I wanted to make sure he heard me. So of course when the question came about of where we would be wed, we had no other choice but to choose Hawaii just as we had planned all those years earlier.