There’s the saying, “All I ever needed to know, I learned in kindergarten.” Well, for Payson couple, Matt and Sara Po’oi, that old adage should be extended to, “The one I needed to marry, I met in kindergarten.”
That’s right. The couple are parents to four boys, have been married for eight and a half years, and met in kindergarten. And according to both, it was basically like (a lot) at first sight.
“We both attended Maeser Elementary School in Provo,” Sara said. “I have little specks of memories of him, and notebooks that my mom saved that say, ‘I love Matty.’
Matt, however, has a little more recollection of the story.
“Sara was my very first crush,” he said. “She and her friends would chase me around the playground, and I would let her kiss me. I remember thinking she was special and going home and telling my family about her. I was actually very vocal about it at home.”
According to the couple, the two were in the same class in kindergarten, but not in first grade, but were reunited as classmates in the second grade. The next year, however, things changed drastically.
“In third grade, my family moved to Ohio,” Sara said. “I lived there all through high school, and thought about moving back to Utah to go to BYU and maybe running into Matt. I didn’t stay connected with him, but I never really forgot about him either.”
Both recalled being a little sad that they were separated, even thinking about each other as the years went on.
According to the Po’oi’s however, their parents also expressed desires that the two would eventually reconnect.
“My mom joked that we would find each other, and my whole family remembered her,” Matt said. “Both of our moms actually remembered us liking each other and would talk about the other through the years.”
It wasn’t until college when fate would eventually have its turn at bringing these two together.
“I moved back to Utah when I was 20 to go to school, and one day I posted a happy birthday note on a friend’s Facebook page,” Sara said. “As it turned out, this friend was a mutual friend of Matt and mine, and Matt also posted on her page. Matt messaged me saying, ‘It’s Matty from kindergarten.’”
Right after the Facebook message, the two connected by phone.
“Our first phone conversation we talked for over an hour,” Matt recalled. “I then asked her on a date to go rock climbing and I’m not even a rock climber. Then, despite Sara not wanting to watch football on Sunday’s, I invited her to a friend’s Super Bowl party, and we ended up talking for four or five hours.”
From then on, the two were inseparable. According to the couple, they started dating in January of 2011, got engaged on April 1 (which was a “real punk move,” according to Sara), and they were married in July. From the day they started dating, not a single day went by without seeing each other until halfway through the couple’s first pregnancy.
Fast forward to the present, the two still love spending time together, and bringing their four boys along.
“We love each other, and we love the life we are building together,” Sara said. “We love to travel and have taken our boys with us on every trip we’ve taken.”
And while an updated couple and family picture is proudly displayed in their home, so is a class picture of the two would-be lovebirds standing in the front row of their kindergarten class. (Brown is a Serve Daily contributor.)
