And the winners are…. Soojin and Jim! Congrats to you both 🙂
Consistent, lasting change: it’s the way that marriage works and it’s the foundation on which we help our clients through their fitness journeys. Living fit is even more fulfilling when you share that lifestyle with the one you love. That’s why we’re giving away one free shared membership to this lucky engaged couple!
The Big Day: May 6th, 2017
How did you both meet and how long have you been together?
Jim is a widower. His wife of 30 years passed away of lung cancer a few years ago. I went through a tough divorce in 2012 after being married for 16 years. Between us, we have six kids (four grown kids for him, two teen boys for me). Neither of us expected to find love after our losses. Yet, unexpectedly, improbably, we did. From the very first date, we really connected, and soon thereafter, feel deeply, madly in love.I know, we sound like a Match.com commercial, but it’s fitting because that’s how we met a year ago and have been together since!
At our ages – (54 and 47 at the time) – we weren’t expecting or looking to meet anyone to spend the rest of our lives with. In fact, on our first date, we both said to each other, “If you’re looking for someone to marry, I’m probably not the right person; I have no interest in getting married again.” Boy were we wrong. We turned out to be not only the “right” person for each other, but the “perfect” person for the other.
Favorite moment together (so far)?
Jim surprised me with the proposal last October. We had just bought a house together and we were going through the home inspection with our realtor and inspector. I loved the house and was worried that we’d find something wrong with it in the inspection. Two hours into it, Jim called me outside and said he had something to show me. I was sure he’d found something wrong with the house and we wouldn’t go through with buying it. He led me through the garage and to the front porch where I saw an ice bucket and champagne. I thought it was to celebrate a successful home inspection. But then he got down on one knee and pulled out a ring box. I heard him say something about “marry me” and the rest was a blur for both of us. He couldn’t have picked a better place to do it – on the front porch of our new house. We’ll always be able to go back to “the place we got engaged.”
What would an AFS membership mean to you as a couple?
So why did we throw our hats into the ring for the Fit Forever Together contest when everything’s going so dreamily for us? Because we’ve fallen off the exercise wagon. Before we met each other, we used to work out on our own regularly. After we met, we replaced working out with going out to eat, and sitting around talking while drinking wine. That has turned both of us into mush.
We want to get back into prioritizing fitness, even when we’re in love or busy with life. We see being fit as a gift to each other. How else are we going to achieve our goal of living to 107 (him) and 100 (me)?