So I decided to start a blog. I thought it would be a neat way to journal about our family so I can look back on it later. Especially now since we have a little one on the way.
Let me first give a little background....
I came down south to go to college not really knowing what God had in store for me. I didn't really know anyone at school and thankfully my aunt and uncle were close by. I didn't know what possessed me to go somewhere where I was out of my comfort zone and I didn't have my close friends nearby. I had a great experience in college, met a lot of wonderful people and got involved with a great church with a singles ministry after college.
I never really dated in college. People tried to set me up with different people. I just didn't feel like I had met the right one yet. People would always pick on me and tell me I was too picky. I had a list of Non-Negotiables/Negotiables and people knew it. Some things on the list were serious and some for funny. I think people believed I would never find someone with those qualities and he didn't exist. But I was determined not to settle. I knew that God wanted me to have the best. So I tried to just enjoy my time being single and was trying to be content where God had me.
Fast forward to about 3 years ago...There was a guy (Brian-now my husband) that was pursuing me and giving me some attention. I knew that he seemed a little different in a good way. Brian and I had a mutual friend, named, Eric and he had told him about me, Brian just wasn't sure how he was going to meet me. Brian started coming to the singles group at my church. We occasionally had some social events on the weekends with the singles ministry. One night we had a game night at the church and that's when things got started. We started talking that night and then things progressed from there.
We started hanging out at church I guess starting in January. The beginning of February was our first official date. We went out to eat after work. Then we went to the circus on February 14. He brought me flowers and there was a little card stuck in the flowers, it read, Proverbs 31:30 "A woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised." You are special to me Marsha. I often wondered "where did this guy come from and God is this really happening?" We joke about it even now, that he was hiding under his rock and finally decided to come out. For the first time I had felt peace about being with him and was enjoying getting to know him. He teaches high school students, works with the Hispanic population in ministry, and is very handy (just like my dad). The only thing that was different was that he was a little country and drives a truck and I am very much a city girl from up north. But there were no red flags up to this point. I was just trying to enjoy the journey that God had me on. I wasn't asking myself or Brian any questions about what was going on. I was trusting and praying that Brian would lead the relationship where ever it was going.
February 18 or so I decided to go skiing with his him, his brother, and a couple of girls from church. Little did I know God had bigger plans on this trip. We went skiing in West Virginia and we skied a lot of black diamond slopes (the hard ones) which I had done before but not all day. I was skiing with some experts so I had to do my best to keep up. My knees/legs were getting tired as we finished up on Saturday. I wiped out a couple of times, but the last time I wiped out was pretty bad. I had fallen and couldn't get up. But guess who was behind me and came to my rescue and then stayed with me the whole time? Brian was. The ski patrol had to come and get me and take me down the mountain on a stretcher. We ended up going home the next day and I had crutches and a splint on my leg. I was in a lot of pain and Brian still didn't leave my side.
My mom came down to help take care of me and Brian got to meet her sooner than I was expecting. At this point we were "just hanging out" we hadn't had the official DTR (Defining the Relationship) talk.
I ended up having 2 surgeries one in April and one in September. Brian was there for me through everything. Later he said with my injury it was just an excuse to pick me up for church and to wait on me. They decided to do surgery on me April 1 at 7:30a.m. I had to be at the hospital at 5:50a.m. Brian took off work and was there to meet us. He stayed all day to hang out with me and my parents until they kicked out the visitors at 8pm. Brian and my dad went out for a bit to get lunch for us while I was recovering from surgery. So they had some time to chat and get to know each other.
When they went in to do surgery they were thinking they would have to do reconstructive surgery on my ACL. They came out saying when they did the surgery orthoscopically I didn't have an ACL tear at all. They cleaned up the cartilage and made sure my ligaments and bones were in the right place. I can't believe it. God is so good. Brian had been so encouraging throughout all of this. I had flowers with a note sitting on my desk at work on Tuesday (the day before surgery)
Brian and his parents came Saturday night and they brought dinner and we got to hang out with them and my parents together. It was alot of fun. The parents did more of the talking. Brian and I just sat back and watched.
I brought Brian to my hometown over Easter and we hung out with my Dad's side of the family.
In March I went with Brian to one his friend's wedding, we visited with his grandma, aunt, and uncle before the wedding for lunch. Grandma wasn't afraid to say anything, and she kind of pushed the issue along for us to have a official title and have the DTR talk. She was sitting at the table talking to her sister on the phone and said, "yeah Brian and his girlfriend are over here for lunch." It was very awkward at first. Nobody said anything. Brian and I didn't even look at each other. We got in the truck to leave and go to the wedding and Brian said, "So I know people are going to ask, is it ok to tell them we are dating." I said "Well isn't that what we are doing?" I was so excited to text my friends and talk to my family and tell them we were officially boyfriend/girlfriend.
Over the next 5 months we hung out and talked ALOT on the phone late at night. The nice thing about our jobs was that we worked a few miles apart, but we lived 45 minutes away from each other. Even though we didn't see each other during the week we made up for it on the phone.
He wrote me sweet notes and left me surprises at the office before I would get there. He planned some surprise dates (like a picnic in the park and paddling in the lake) All this time I was trying not to read into anything, I was just enjoying it and letting him lead.
One day at work I received an email from him concerning our date for that evening. He said there was some things that he wanted to talk about on our date. After reading this email, I was nervous for the rest of the day. I was wondering, what in the world where we going to talk about. I was pretty stressed. We went out to eat and nothing was brought up and I certainly wasn't going to say anything. We walked around the mall until it was time for the movie to start. We went to see "Up". He still didn't say anything. After the movie he brought me back to my work so I could pick up my car and we sat in his car and talked for hours probably until 2am. He wanted to let me know his thoughts and feelings about our relationship and where it was headed. We talked about marriage and asked me when we were ready to get a ring would I want to go shopping and pick it out. I said yes, but I wasn't too picky and told him I didn't need anything big. Later that evening after he got home he told his parents about our conversation. His dad said, "You practically proposed to her." Brian got nervous about his dad's reaction and called me to make sure he didn't scare me away or wanted to make sure he wasn't out of line.
At the end of June until the beginning of July my family went to Key West (mom, dad, sister, husband, sister's inlaws, and myself) for a week. I wasn't sure what I thought about going with not having anyone to talk to or hang out with since everyone but me was married. I thought it was too early and too much to ask Brian to go. So I waited a while and I ended up asking him to go. Secretly he was hoping I would ask him. He planned his other vacation time around my trip, just in case I asked him to go. He actually went on a cruise with one of his good friends like 2 weeks before our trip. One of their stops was Key West. Then 6 months prior to us going he went with his family on a cruise over Christmas and they stopped in Key West, so over the course of a year he ended up going to Key West- 3 times. He didn't seem to mind it though.
We had the best time in Key West. I was so glad I had somebody to hang out with. Little did I know that Brian had something planned for our trip to Key West. We did things with the family as well as go off and did things by ourselves. One day we were walking down Duval St. and we decided to get our caricature drawing done. We had our faces drawn and then Brian pulled the artist to the side to tell her something. I had no idea what he was telling her and didn't think anything of it and didn't ask any questions. So the artist told us to come back in about 15 minutes and she would have our drawings done. When we got back to pick them up they were rolled up and Brian wouldn't let me see it. We got on our water taxi to head back to the cottage we were staying in and on the dock he finally let me open up the drawings to look at it. Brian asked me what I saw in the picture. The picture showed us in a little canoe in our bathing suits. I was wearing a diamond ring on my finger and on the boat it said "I love you" I didn't know what to think, I told Brian that I thought I was going to cry. The other thing to mention was that he had never told me that he loved me until this point. He told me he wanted it to be special when he did tell me and wanted me to know that those were special words. He wanted to make sure he meant it. Then he said he had a souvenir for me. He pulled out a ring box out of his pocket and got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I had no idea this was coming, because we had talked about ring shopping and it hadn't happened yet. My sister and brother in law were the first to see us sitting on the dock. She didn't know what was on my finger at first because it was so hot and my fingers were swollen a little, so I had to put the ring on my pinky finger.
The best part of the trip was the he proposed to me in Key West on June 30. We called family and friends while we were there and enjoyed the rest of the time left on our vacation celebrating.
The wedding planning was somewhat stressful. We didn't have a long time to prepare. I found my dress at the first place we went to. I tried on 3 dresses and it ended up being the first dress I tried on that we bought.
5 months later we got married on December 5, 2009 and had our very 1st kiss. Yes you read that right, we decided to have our first kiss the day we said "I do" We got married at the church where we met and the singles pastor married us. We had a huge wedding party with our brother/sister and friends. I had 8 bridesmaids/groomsmen, twin flower girls and ring bearers. I always said I wanted purple in my wedding. The girls wore purple dresses and the guys wore purple ties. We had lots of family and friends to celebrate with.
We went to the mountains and stayed in a cabin for a long weekend for our short honeymoon. Then Brian had to go back to work. Over Christmas break we took our real honeymoon to Jamaica and had the best time.
enjoying some Popovers
Kayaking
kissing shot
bike ride
Climbing over a rock on our hike
Brian eating his lobster
