Our story

So I have to leave for my internship in approximately 15 minutes....so we'll see if I get through this whole post or have to come back later.  Today marks the six year dating anniversary for the hubby and I :) Sooooo I decided to dedicate a post to our story...it's pretty unique...at least I think so :)

I guess it really started during the end of our freshman year of high school.  To set the situation up: my grandpa was in the hospital and it was basically a matter of time before he passed away...everyone knew he wasn't getting better. My boyfriend at the time had completely stopped talking to me and dumped me about 3 days before my grandpa passed away. Meanwhile, Jake had been calling me and talking to me on AIM about things that were going on and seeing how I was doing with everything. We kind of started talking more seriously, me about Luke (ex-boyfriend) and Jake about Kaci (the girl he liked that started dating another guy...I also ended up becoming really good friends with her when I moved up there about a year later....she was even in our wedding...funny how it all works out!).  We lived an hour away so we could each talk about these people without the other one really knowing anyone involved in the situation.

Anyhow, I kind of started liking Jake and church camp was coming up in June so I was like what the heck...something might happen, right? Fat chance, but a girl can hope.  We talked and hung out a lot for the first two days and on that Wednesday night, June 8, 2005, everything changed. Gosh, I'm so corny today. For real though...the way I remember it is we were sitting in the middle of a couch with four people squished on it. Someone got up at one point but neither one of us moved away at all. Neither one of us had any idea that the other one liked us. So we're just sitting there and our hands are laying REALLY close together. All the sudden our pinkies are intertwined. Still no talking or even eye contact at this point. At one point someone turned the light off to play with a glow stick and we took the opportunity to hold hands (because you can't do that in public at church camp!). The lights would come back on and we'd go back to holding pinkies. It became a game...we kept convincing the guy to turn the lights off to show us the glowstick so we could hold hands. So sneaky!  It was so totally unlike us to make any kind of move like that. Reason number 1 I knew we were meant to be together :)

Haha there's a picture from that night I'm pretty sure...soooo young!

However, Friday came quickly! We had to leave and we lived an hour away from each other. We were both 15 so we couldn't even drive.  We had no idea if we were going to continue to pursue any kind of relationship or anything. We didn't really even know if we were dating, boyfriend/girlfriend, or nothing at all. It was a weird situation. After we got home Jake talked to me on AIM about how he didn't think this would work or know what we were doing at all but there's no way it would work out and I, of all people, told him let's just see where it goes for the summer. If any of you know me, you know how unlike me that is.  I'm a planner. I HATE not knowing exactly what's going to happen. It was so not like me to say anything like that...Reason Number 2 I know we were meant to be together :)

Long story short, we saw each other on and off that summer...about once a month. The longest we went without seeing each other was 2 months right before homecoming.  I got my license in December so we started seeing each other almost every weekend at that point, whether I would go up and stay at my amazing friend Emmy's house :) or we'd meet up at the mall or something...we made it work.

So I can't find the picture of Jake and I from his homecoming...so this was my homecoming a week after his!

So this went on until I got an ulcer in February...too much long-distance stress I guess.  I debated my next move for awhile and eventually asked my parents if there was anyway we could move to Jake's hometown. I played the whole "better school system" blah blah blah expecting them to say...ha yeah right, nice try. However, my mom said we can look at houses. Reason number 3 I knew we were meant to be together.

So we moved in August and that was a whole new adjustment for our relationship.  We had long-distance down...we didn't know how to be in a relationship where we saw each other every day.  It definitely took some getting used to.  We dated all through the rest of high school and ended up going to the same college...because we both liked and could afford that college and NOT because the other one was going there. Yeah, that was a bonus but we didn't want to be THAT couple that made their choices solely based on what the other person was doing. We dated our whole first year of college and then on July 7, 2009 Jake proposed! We had gone to look at rings and then out for dessert and the little stinker had already picked out a ring 3 weeks ago...he got lucky and it was the same ring that I picked out that night when we went to look.

On the night he proposed.

The rest is history! We got married on June 26, 2010 and are quickly approaching our one year anniversary.  We've made it through one year of college as a married couple and we have one more to go.  It's been challenging and busy but I wouldn't do it any other way if I could and I don't think Jake would either.

Sorry for such a long post...I just love our story :)

P.S...I did not get that written in the 15 minutes before my internship. It's about 7 hours later than when I started this sucker.