Happy Valentine’s Day Queens,

Ok, so for those of you that don’t know my name is Ashley and I’m the owner of Ivy Reina. I write these weekly blogs to help build the Ivy Reina community, and this week I’m going to let you get to know a little about me. With that said it’s the season of love so I figured I’d start with my love story from my POV because if you ask other people that were in my life at this time they definitely have a different perspective of what when down lol. Interracial Couple

 

To start the story I have to take you back to 2011 when my husband and I were both in our jr year of high school. I was that girl that was always in a relationship or talking to a few dudes of interest lol. I find that when I look back the majority of them I dated solely out of boredom, but this isn’t a therapy session so I’m not going into detail about that. Anyway, at this time I was talking to 4 dudes because it was not like I was dating them. Guy number 1, we’ll call him Jessie, I met while working at the mall, guy number 2, let’s go with Dawn, I’d met in elementary school and he’d been in love with me ever since, and the other 2, we’ll call them Jeremy and Emmett, went to school with me. First Date (first date photo)

Ok so, Jessie has the shortest part of the story so let’s go ahead and knock him out. His cousin approached me at Starbucks and got my number for him because he was “too shy.” I being bored was like ok cool, so we started talking. About 2 weeks in he tells me that he’s adopted,  he loves me, and he wants to introduce me to his real mother. Now I’m not even close to being in love (hence the 3 other dudes on my line), so I try to convince him nicely, at first, not to introduce me to his mother, like telling him I’m weird, I don’t love you, and moms don’t like me. He’s not convinced so I ghost him until he leaves me alone. 

 

Dawn could have a whole article to himself, but I’ll keep it short because he lost out in the end. So after years of being chased and rejecting this guy I finally just decide why not and decided to give him a chance. When I get off of work he meets me outside and we take a walk hashing out all the why do you like me so much, why I wasn’t giving him a chance, and blah blah blah. The night ends with fro yo and a kiss (romantic I know). We’re still not officially dating but I’m considering it at this point, however, he royally fucks up. He was in ROTC at his school and everyone knows at the end of the year they have their “military ball,” basically they get awards, eat, and dance all night, he decided to take his “best friend” instead of me. I only find out because she posts pictures on FB or IG and I see them. I texted him the longest message ever written about how I knew if I gave him the bag he’d fumble it. He writes back about how she’s just a friend and how he’ll make me his wife one day (high school is so dramatic lol), and I respond with a simple I’m good. He joins the military and would try flirting when he was home, but eventually, he didn’t come back (he’s not dead he just got stationed somewhere and I blocked him so we never talked.) 


Now Jeremy was not at all my type, but he was fun to hang out with when he wasn’t being a baby. I knew I was never going to date him because he couldn’t let go of his Ex. How you can cling onto two girls so tight I will never understand. Don’t feel bad for me though I knew going into this situationship that he and his ex could break up a thousand times, but they’d never really be over, and that was my way out when I eventually get bored. It didn’t take long for that day to come either so that fizzled out. 


Finally, there was Emmett, keep in mind all of this is happening at the same time. So I rode the bus to school and to avoid sitting with underclassmen I would always sit with Emmett. Typically I would just go to sleep, but one day we started just having random conversations and listening to each other’s playlists, but for the longest time we only really talked on the bus. Then the game Word’s with Friends came out. I’d play against him all the time, he typically won, so I would cheat lol just to beat him every now and then. Now WWF had a chat room where the players could talk to each other and we started chatting and flirting there. Eventually, we made a bet, I don’t remember the exact terms or who’s bet was who’s but there was a kiss involved in this bet. Of course, the winner was whoever wanted the kiss, and my sweet Emmett was so nervous, but he did it. After this moment, we start to realize how much we have in common, we liked the same video games, movies, and even with different tastes in music we still appreciated each other’s playlists. The more we talked the more I really started to like him and that’s when the drama started lol. Suddenly I started to realize just how many girls were into him, so I knew I had to put down the finishing move. One girl named Regina was putting it on thick, so I made my move I simply asked him when he was going to ask me out? This question always works out for me and I’ll never understand why, but it does. He replied don’t worry I will and the next day made me his girlfriend (I spent the rest of the week cutting ties with the above fools), but that didn’t stop the vultures from trying to swoop in and carry him away. Another girl we’ll call Maddison DMs him asking about our relationship and if he really likes me, and lets him know that she was in fact interested. My soft boy shows me the DM and asks me how he should respond. Knowing I’d won that one without even trying, I told him to just confirm that you’re with me now and to feel free to be dramatic about it. Now, this next girl wanted all the smoke because she was constantly trying to get him alone, but for whatever reason, he was always all about me and that definitely made me fall for him. Fast forward to the end of Sr. year, we decide to go to separate colleges. Apparently, we both thought we’d just eventually drift apart, but we ended up talking every day that we were apart, and I’d even drive 6 hours to visit him when I was between trimesters. When he was between semester’s he’d come to visit me. Once we both graduated and found jobs we moved in together. He proposed at our housewarming party and then we got married and bought a dog. All that to say we’re still happily in love 10 years later. 

wedding photos


That was a lot, and I definitely skipped some details, but I need something to write about next Valentine’s Day lol.  Plus, the back story gives a much bigger picture as to what was going on at the time. Emmett who is my actual husband Ivan eventually inspired me to go after my dream of being a boutique owner which is why I named the store after him. 



Ashley Hernandez