Category: Family

I ended the last post with David proposing. I guess I forgot to write about my reaction to him proposing. At first I was shocked, then after it sunk in I started to tear up. As soon as we were back at the truck and David had a signal he was taking out his phone and posting on Facebook I said yes. (Some people asked why they saw it on Facebook first.) At first we were thinking an October wedding, but plans ended up changing. Some friends who got married on June, 07, 2008 were telling us we needed to get married on 09-10-11 since they got married on 06-07-08 and then on 12-13-14 we would plan something really big. We laughed about it, but didn’t think that would happen. (We didn’t even check what day it was on.) The pastor we had asked to officiate the wedding told us he could not do October because it was Missions Month at his church. We asked him if we switched it to September if he would still do it. He said yes. We check and 09-10-11 was on a Saturday to our great fortune. So 9-10-11 it was. It was a very interesting call to the family. We told them we were moving the wedding date. Some asked why we were moving it back. We had to laugh and tell them we were moving it up! That they were okay with. 🙂 For whatever reason they were afraid the wedding was going to be put off. Nope. Not going to happen. We went from talking about a December wedding, to October, and then ended up in September. David and I were very excited to get married and neither one of us were going to push it back. I know some couples joke about one having to drag the other down the isle but not us. We were both very anxious to be married. The wedding process went by so fast. I remember feeling like my head was spinning. I felt so over whelmed with everything. Thankfully I have many people in my life who love me and helped me. I have great family and friends who did everything they could to help out.

The day I got my dress was very memorable. My parents and I had visited David’s Bridal but there was nothing ‘just right’. There was one gown I really liked and was going to go with that one if I found nothing else. My mom and I decided to give a chance at the local Bridal Boutique in Saint Joseph before definitely decided on the gown from David’s. They had just moved stores and some dresses were still packed up. We went through what they had out and I found a lot I liked, but still not perfect. I looked through the selection one last time and a chiffon dress caught my eye. I love chiffon. My favorite dresses are made out of chiffon, and I’ve been partial to the material ever since. I asked to see the dress hanging in the bag, in the corner. “Well that’s one we just got unpacked. It’s wrinkly.” I didn’t mind, and when they checked the size, it was my size. I tried it on, and it was a perfect fit. The straps needed to be altered and that was it. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at my mom. My mom told me she was not going to give her opinion she wanted to know mine first. I told her it was perfect and we agreed it was the right one. It was the last one of a discontinued line. I took it to my mother-in-law to do the alterations. (Cheaper that having the store do it and I trusted her not to mess up my dress.) When I stopped by her store to try it on after she adjusted the straps, she told me she was showing the dress to different people and they all agreed it was a gorgeous gown and the perfect dress. (Later after the wedding she had it at her store because she was taking it to the dry cleaners for me, and she showed it to people and apparently my dress got lots of compliments. Yup. Right dress. 🙂 )

The day of the wedding was the craziest day of my life. My bridesmaids were the best ever. My best friend Cortney was my maid of honor and kept me sane. I didn’t sleep at all the night before. I woke up and I felt drowsy and unable to think. I look at the pictures of me getting my hair and make up done and you can see the dark circles and how tired I am. Not my best moments. David looked bright eyed and ready to go in his early morning shots. (Not fair.) In the moments before the ceremony started I was praying for people to come see me so I could be distracted. Not because of nerves… Those couple hours of getting ready felt like an eternity. I remember listening to my iPod and playing some of my favorite songs to calm my nerves. I was worried about everything being okay and going well, and happening like it was supposed to. If it’s your big day and you aren’t a tad anxious, you’re crazy. Not everything was perfect, and you know what… No big deal. At the end of the day David and I were married, and I have fond memories of the quirks that happened. It lightened things up and even I cracked a smile or two.

We had two things happen during the wedding. One was when my maid-of-honor was supposed to hand me the ring. Her hands are so much smaller than David’s she was afraid of dropping the ring, so she tied it to her bouquet. Well the knot got stuck. It took a few minutes for her to get it untied. Also David and I planned for him to dip me when we kissed and we even practiced it a few times. However, the problem was we had never practiced it on the wood stage with him in his dress shoes. (No we didn’t think about the slick factor.) David’s foot slid out from under him, but he caught himself and we did not fall on top of each other. Disaster, and ruining the whole moment was adverted. The photos from that moment are interesting to say the least. I honestly didn’t realize how close I was to the ground. I am so very thankful David thought fast and was able to keep me from falling flat on my back.

The reception went great. I have two favorite memories. The staircase in the ballroom where we had it, had a large pillar slightly back and to the left of it. When I threw the bouquet from the staircase, I threw it right into the pillar. No one expected my ‘breakaway’ bouquet. When it fell apart every one was afraid it was an accident and I would be so upset. I wanted that surprise. 4 or 5 of my friends and family got flowers, instead of one person. One of my younger cousins got a flower and it meant a lot to her she got one. Also my other favorite part was at the end of the reception as everyone was finishing up, all my friends and I danced to the ‘Cha Cha Slide.’ I have photos of that in my office. After all said and done we dropped his tux off with his parents, gathered our stuff, and we headed home to Blue Springs. We were going to drop off some of our stuff, grab our bags and drive out to Saint Louis before flying to Ireland. We got to the house and David realized he left his laptop at the church. We had to hang around the house for a few hours waiting for our friends to deliver the laptop. David and I spent that time opening gifts and putting stuff away we weren’t planning on dealing with till we got back, but why waste time. It was nice to sit in our living room, and breathe. The wedding was over and we could finally relax. The wedding was wonderful, the reception was excellent and we were married.

Well here is a good stopping point and next will start the honeymoon blogs.

Always,

Megan

When David and I started dating, and started getting serious he told me he would not purpose till we had dated for 1 year. I was okay with that. I wanted plenty of time to allow this to devlop. I knew David as my friend, but this was my time to get to know him at his core. I got to know different things about him I never knew before, and the same goes for me. He knew me as his friend, someone who cared for him and some he had fun being around, but he really got to know me. After my first year at BBC I came home for the summer, and came home to my sister getting ready to get married. David helped keep me sane during that extreamly busy time. He took me to see our favorite Jazz artist Mindi Abair and took me to see my favorite musical “Dream Girls”. Both are events I will never forget, but especially because of who I was with. After the fantastic summer was over I went back to school conflicted. Someone at church asked me “What happens when you find out you love David more than school?” At the time I was asked that I didn’t think my mind would change. School was where I belonged and school was where I was going to stay. I finally understood what that person meant. I was getting to the point where I couldn’t stand being away from him. It hurt not to see him. As I wrote before I pouted and had a pity party when I couldn’t be with him. I never knew how deep I would come to love him. He was everything I ever wanted and could ever ask for and I was going to put my school ahead of him. I talked to a person on campus I trusted. She told me to pray about, as she had just gotten married she understood what I was feeling.

That year was my 2nd year at BBC and I became very involved in school. I was an assistant RA, and was in the choir and helping out where I was needed. One of the choir trips fell on the weekend of our one year anniversary of dating. The choir went to Michigan. It was a fun trip, but the whole time I thought of David and how bad I felt I was gone. On the way back from the trip David was texting me and I was suspecting he was going to be there waiting for me on campus. He wasn’t. Later I asked him if he was going to be there, and he told me he wanted to be, but he got held up at work and didn’t get out in time. I was okay with it, because I knew in a few days it would be the weekend again and I would be seeing him. (The trip was from Fri-Mon.)

That weekend came soon enough and David arrived on Friday as promised. Saturday morning he picked me at 8 am for our usual weekend walk and morning coffee time. When I get down to the parking lot and open the truck door, there are 1 dozen roses sitting on my seat. I was shocked. I ran the flowers upstairs to my room and came back excited. I knew today was the day he was going to propose. I suspected he was going to ask on the trail we walked every weekend he was down there, and where we shared our first kiss, and he told me he loved me. Guess what… NOPE! We got to MudHouse Coffee shop after the walk and I was puzzled. I had no idea then when he was going to ask. We went to lunch at Lambert Cafe’ and did some shopping, just spent the whole day being out and about. By the end of the day I was exhausted and slightly and slightly irritated. I knew he was going to ask, but I couldn’t figure out when and it was getting on my nerves with all the anticipation. I just wanted him to ask already so I could say yes and post all over Facebook about being engaged. We drove round and he said he wanted to go check out one of the hiking parks in Ozark. I said fine. He asked me if I was okay and I told him I was just getting tired from all the walking we were doing. He promised he wouldn’t be long and just wanted to scope it out for pictures. We parked and started on our hike through the woods. I asked David what he was looking and waiting for to start taking pictures. He told me he was looking for just the right spot. Soon we came upon a rock wall where the rocks were jagged out on the bottom like a little bench. As soon as I sat down I saw spider webs and of course started getting antsy looking for a spider to crawl on me. (I am horrible with spiders. I see one and I won’t be happy till I know its dead.)

David just ignores it all and sets his stuff down. He starts digging through his bag and says, “Hey remember that deck of cards I bought a few weeks ago?” I nod, “I have it in here. Wanna play some cards?” I am sure the look on my face was amusing. I shrug and say okay. He pulls the pack out and is struggling getting the wrapper off. I hold out my hand and tell him, “I have nails let me.” He hands it over and I quickly get the wrapping off and use my nail to slice the sticker that holds the lid close. I hand it back to him not sure what he has in mind. (I was honestly clueless.) He starts to talk about our year together and special it has been to him and how so many special people have helped make it. I listen and am kinda confused where he is going with this. He starts to shuffle the cards while he talking. He lays down a group on cards and starts to flip the ones in his hands over, and like a magic trick picture are on the cards.

Pretty cool huh? I was in shock to say the least. “How did you do that!?!?!” I was so surprised. He told a story using the photos. He then paused. He laid down a 10 that had “WIill” printed across it, a Jack that had “You”, a Queen that had “Marry”, and finally the King had “Me?”. Underneath those cards the rest of the deck was glued together and the center cut out, and in the middle was the ring.

 

 

Ok, this photo isn’t the best, but on the far right is the ring in the cards.

David and I were meant to be. If you have been following the post and read all of the ones prior to this, you have gotten what these post have been about. So that is the story of how he prorposed. 🙂 Enjoy!

Megan

I guess I need to update and continue our story. When David and I started dating he bought me a card for my phone to upload music to it. I had a Samsung phone and he put some of his favorite stuff on there for me. One song was an absolute favorite. “Follow Me” by Uncle Kracker. He said he liked to listened to it, because for some reason it was relaxing to him. I understood what he meant, and set Follow Me as his ringtone. (Still is to this day.) Very funny thing. One song that is like for me is Drift Away. I knew there was 2 versions of the song. An older one by Dobie Gray, and the newer one I always heard on the radio. Never knew who sang the newer version. Lo, and behold Uncle Kracker. David and I match on so many things. We meld. Do we agree on 100%, and do things the same way 100% of the time? No, however it’s little stuff we disagree on. Stuff that doesn’t matter. I like to fold my clothes and towel one way, and he folds it another. I like to hang my jeans, he folds his jeans. Very trivial things, then there are important things that we NEED to be different on. I can have a short fuse, get tired, grumpy,stressed and get in a bad mood. David has a very long ‘fuse’, is very patient and doesn’t let stuff rattle him, or get stressed out. If we were both people who struggled with having a temper, we would fight a lot more than we do. When we were dating this stuff became apparent, and it was a good thing.

I remember how he asked me to date him. One weekend he was visiting me at BBC, we had traveled down to Branson from Springfield to visit his grandparents. It was a cold, rainy, October day. His grandparents live by one of the lakes. They have a little peer for people of that residence to fish off of, or just sit and watch the boats go up and down the lake. We walked out there, and he wrapped his arms around me, making a comment about us ‘being official’. I looked at him, and he said, “I guess I have to ask ya, huh?” I said yes. So he asked me if I would date him. I’ll never forget it.  At night when he was in KC and I was in Springfield, we would be on Skype, and playing video games online together. Our time dating was all about our friendship becoming something more. We always had fun times together. We both have similar taste, likes, and dis-likes. Our relationship was a solid friendship, with romance. He brought me flowers, cards, etc. I loved him because he understood me, and was so much fun.

All of my friends told me, they wished they could clone him, and shove his mentality into the guys they knew. I knew I was blessed. Many guys at college didn’t interest me, because I felt as if I had little in common with them. Where I might be friends with them, I was never romantically interested. However, I felt stuck. I often talked to David about this. All of his friends were married, with careers and kids. Myself being 5 years younger than him, bothered me at times. Not because of age, but place in life. I was only half way thru college, barely spent any time on my own, and never had been in a serious relationship before. I was scared of holding him back in life. If we waited till I was done with college to be married, we would be getting married this year, instead of getting married over a year ago. My first year of college I spent at home, not sure what to do, or where to go. I took minimal classes, and barely had a declared major. That mixed with transferring, I was not going to graduate as soon as I would have liked. If we married before I was finished, I would be transferring again, delaying my school. If I had stayed at BBC, I would be graduating in May. Instead, I choose David and am not graduating until next year. However, it’s a choice I don’t regret. When I only saw him 2 times a month it made me so sad. It did come to a point to where I saw him every weekend, but there is no way we could have kept that up forever. It was draining us both. On the weekends, I didn’t want to make time for anything, but being with him. He had work, and him traveling back and forth, spending money on gas, hotels, etc. It was hard. I’ll never forget the time when we went three weeks without seeing each. I moped around the dorms, and pouted. So instead of going to sleep by myself in a dorm room, I go to bed cuddling next David with 2 dogs sleeping on the floor next to the bed. I was just thinking last night as I drifted off to sleep, “All is right in the world.” I love being married, I love the church we go to, I love the area we live, I love my job at Cato’s Fashion, I love my classes at UCM, and everything over all is going great. I can’t imagine my life without David, and our two dogs, Bolt & Xal. With everything that has gone right, I know I made the right decision.

When talking to my sister not long ago, she asked how we were. I told her take our friendship, and add the fact we’re married and that’s our life. We take photos together, play games, take walks, share a pretzel at the mall while talking about the latest news, watch comedies together while eating pizza, and enjoy making Starbucks runs together. Well that is it for now. I need a whole post to write about how we purposed. Hehe.

Megan Renee

Part 2- The Middle Ground

 

I never knew God would meet my challenge. Guess some things you learn the hard way. Let me rewind and explain. I was 16 years old when I was challenged to make a list of the kind of man we wanted. I had two list actually. I had the ‘Essentials’ and the ‘Wants’. My favorite Disney movie growing up was Aladdin. Princess Jasmine, a head strong girl, who knows what she wants, ends up with a street smart, cool guy, from the wrong end of town, with a heart of gold. (Oh an a Genie and magic flying carpet! Hehe!) My favorite teen movie was “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” from the 80’s. The good girl, military daughter, ends up being dance partners with a cool guy, from the other side of town with a motorcycle. (I’ve only been on a motorcycle once, and loved it!) My favorite Christian-romance novel is called Heart and Soul. Sweet, good girl Michelle, falls in love with the mysterious guy on a bike, who works for her family’s farm. He turns out to be an undercover FBI agent, investigating the fake money being printed by her uncle. He was someone who could be her best friend. That’s what I wanted. The cool guy on the bike, with a heart of gold, who was my best friend. I wasn’t holding out for a guy on a bike, so I wrote down the next best thing. A big truck… My list looking something like this. I wrote it out as things popped into my head…

 

MUST:

Christian

A gentleman

sweet

Fun

A sense of humor

my best friend

kind

considerate

treats me with respect

smart

 

What I Want:

Blond hair

blue eyes

taller than me

truck (red, I had to pick a color)

handsome

 

I never really thought I’d get what I wanted. I told God, “Find me this man.” I had various crushes along the way, but none of them worked out. When praying for the one meant for me, I told God if someone wasn’t meant to be, to not even let them in my life. I wanted to feel disappointed of a guy I liked going no where, then the heart ache of a failed relationship. I can honestly say, I never dated any one but David Alexander. I went to formal events with different guy friends, but I never dated them.

I read a book suggested by my sunday school teacher called, “When God Writes Your Love Story.” It was a beautiful story of how God directed two people together. I wanted that kind of story. Everyone does.

I was reading a Christian-teen girl magazine around the same time and one of the stories of the magazine stuck with me a long time. It’s a story of a girl who walks into a room, with an older man sitting at a desk writing a story. He had clean, crisp white paper, and wrote the story in the most beautiful handwriting the girl ever saw. She stood next to him reading the story as it was being written. It was a love story, but the princess and the prince were taking too long to meet and be together for the girl’s taste. She grew impatient. She took the pen from the old man and started writing the story herself. She wrote in guy after guy and none turned out the way she wanted, so she would scratch them out best she could. She wrote so frantically, she spilled ink all over the beautiful paper making a horrid mess of the masterpiece. She started to cry in frustration, and finally looked back at the old man, who had been standing there quietly the whole time. She handed him the pen and the paper. She asked him if he could fix it, and he said he could, but the paper would still have faint traces of the stains. The paper would never be white and pure again. He cried over what had happened and his tears cleaned the paper. However, if the girl looked hard she could see where the old stains were. The old man finished the story with a happy ending. The devotion to the story was, God can forgive us and makes anew, but we can never fully forget our past. The girl had to live with what she did. The paper was wiped clean, but there was always the reminder of what she had done. It encouraged the reader to remember that and be patient, and not rush God’s timing. I’m glad I never dated any one but David, cause there is no memories of exes and so on. I wish everyone could say that of their relationship lives, but I know that’s not the way it is. I know some people believe you gotta be out and experience new things before settling down, that’s not me. I never wanted dozens of guys.

When David and I started dating, we always had so much fun together. (Still do.) It was just an extension of our friendship. We found walking trails around Springfield. Every weekend was pretty similar. David would get in Friday night and we would hang out at one of the coffee shops till I had to head back to the dorms. Saturday morning David picked me up first thing in the morning around 7/8am before most of my friends were up for the day. We went to this one walking trail and walk 2-3 miles, before heading downtown to get coffee. (Usually from the Mudhouse.) We would sit and chill in there talking, would walk around down town, and spend the rest of the day running around town. Sometimes we went to Branson to visit his grandparents or my friends who lived there. Sunday was church, lunch and then he would leave. Some weeks he was able to stay till after evening church, but not always. A lot of the times we got take-out from somewhere and parked at a park and sat in the truck and talked, or watched movies on his laptop. We would go to Wal-mart get a rotisserie chicken, a loaf of french bread, couple bottles of pop, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. We made chicken sandwiches, and shared desert. Some nights we still do that. 🙂 Our favorite flavors are Karmel-Sutra, Cookie Dough, Late Night Snack, and Heath. Every once in awhile we grab a random flavor to try.

My friends at BBC knew when David was in town, I disappeared. We tried to include them and would take them with us whenever we could. David made chocolate chip cookies for my friends as a bribe to them for stealing me away. They became pretty well known around the dorm. I would walk through with a plastic tub of cookies, and people would look at me, “Are those your boyfriend’s cookies?” “Yes.” “Can I have one!?” “Yup!” haha. Boyfriend’s of the girls on my floor tended to be given a hard time, but somehow David never got that. Partly cause they didn’t know him as well, partly because he baked cookies for them.

One thing that sticks in my head was after we got engaged people asked if we had kissed yet. I told them yes, and they were asked me, “When?” I had to laugh, “Awhile ago.” They told me, “Way to kiss and tell, Megan!” haha. I honestly didn’t think I would be as ready to give him a kiss as I was. I really think it was because we were so comfortable with each other. Now I’ve gone there, I need to tell the story of our first kiss. It was actually shortly after we started dating. Not many people know this story. We were walking along our normal trail, and we stopped to catch our breath. It was cold, and wind was blowing pretty hard. David put his arm around me trying to keep me warm, and I looked up at him, and had this thought. “Wonder what it would be like to kiss him?” Next thing I know I was kissing him. As soon as I pulled back the first thing out of my mouth… “Dang it.” David looked at me very confused. I told him how I didn’t think I would kiss him so soon and had told myself I wasn’t going to kiss him until a certain point of our relationship. I honestly didn’t scold myself too hard for breaking that. I just knew we were going to last. Some times we rough and we had our moments when I did start to question, but deep down inside I just knew. It was meant to be and I couldn’t dispute that. I have more to write about our 2 years of dating before getting married, but I think this post is long enough. Thanks for reading! God Bless!

 

I wanted to write about our story. How it all came about and everything we went through. Lets begin.

The Reasons Why I Love David Robert Alexander… By Megan Renee Higginbotham-Alexander

 

Part I: The Beginning

 

It’s been 3 years since I first started dating David, and 7 years since I first met him. It was August 2005. I’ll never forget that day or the first time I met him. It was the day the New Generation Singers came back from their 2 week trip through the states singing at churches. This summer they had gone out west to California and the surrounding area. My sister really enjoyed herself, and I was glad for that. She needed something to get her out of her shell and out and on her own. I was always the outgoing sister and I knew she needed to find her own. I had just started to get into photography through doing 4-H. I had a manual Cannon SLR. It had a Mickey Mouse strap that was black and white, but I colored it with sharpie markers to make it more fun and stand out. I loved that camera. It went everywhere with me, so naturally it was with me the day of the New G Homecoming concert.

I was 15 years old and about 5’6/7. (Now I am about 5’9-10.) I was chomping at the bite to get my license and be a ‘free spirit’. I remember what I was wearing that day oddly enough. Most days I can’t, but something about that day always stuck in m head. A red t-shirt with sparkly red, white, and blue flowers across the front that said “USA!”, dark denim jeans with a blue sash belt. I was out in the lobby of the Missouri Theatre talking to my sister before the concert started. I was standing there waiting to talk to Rachel when a guy came up to me and grabbed ahold of my camera, which was hanging around my neck. He looked at both sides of it, said, “Nice camera!” and gently placed it back where it was resting in front and walked away. My brain did a quick, “Huh.. What just happened?…” I then thought, “Hmmm… Oh well. He was cute.” Shortly after that I joined my parents at our our seats and the concert started. The concert was good, and we joined the choir at Ground Round restaurant after wards for dinner. By this time Rachel had introduced us and explained the two of them hung out during the tour. We sat in a booth in the corner, and towards the end of the evening David came over to talk to us. I still remember sitting on the end and David leaning against our booth looking down at me talking about me joining the choir the next year. At the time I was thinking a lot about dating and boys and so on. I had my youth pastors wife telling us to pray for our husbands, and think about our futures now, because one day it was going to the present and we were going to have to live our past decisions. That stuck. (Apparently, I still remember it.) I had this thought looking up at David, thinking how cute he was. “Wouldn’t it be cool if I met my husband today?” Little did I know at the time,…

Shortly after that night David became a regular at our house. We soon discovered he lived only a few streets from us, and he started walking over to house to hang out. Him and my dad developed a friendship over this time as well. My dad had an old Astroids game cabinet he couldn’t get to work, as well as a Coca-Cola Machine. Two thinks David likes. Coca-cola and video games. (We currently have 2 rooms of the house dedicated to these things. The kitchen is Coke themed and his office is video game themed.) Every time was fairly similar. David came over played video games, watched movies/comedian videos and talked about geeky stuff. My parents soon got to the point of, “It’s just David.” He helped teach my sister to drive, helped me with my photography, worked on my parents computer, and was generally over all part of the family.

When Rachel left for Pennsylvania, in fall 2007 and was gone for 9 months, David made extra efforts to stop by and see me. Kept an eye on me, and kept me from being too lonely. The only CYT play he got to see, was the one most important to me, Snow White. I was sad not to have my sister there, but it meant a lot to me how many people showed up to support me, and that David was one of them. He was always there for me when I needed him. During that fall David decided to take me out with his friends Andy, and Michelle to do some computer shopping. Andy and David were having fun drooling over the computer stuff, and Michelle and I wandered the shop talking. She was getting ready to graduate college and was beginning her career as a science teacher. We had fun spending the time together. It would be several years before I saw her again. Little known to me, but shortly after Andy and Michelle were telling David, they liked me and thought he should date me. (When David finally told them we were going to date, I am told they were over joyed.)

One day in spring 2008 he decided to take me out to Squaw Creek for some photos, and he had just got his truck, so wanted to take it out for a drive. He had his arm resting on the center console/middle seat that folds down. His hand was resting with his palm facing slightly up. I had a thought, thinking, “I have this feeling like I should be holding his hand. It just feels like this should be something more but it’s not.” I thought on that for a few seconds, but quickly brushed it away not wanting to dwell on it. I don’t remember much else about that day, but that stuck… Things in my life with David always seemed to stick in my memory and I never knew why. Now I’m thankful. During that same time period a friend of mine called me up telling me she was upset with her parents, she had no vehicle access, so she was walking to my house cause she needed out of the house. David was already over hanging out with me. I didn’t know this at the time, but while she was sitting there thinking to herself how it seemed as if there was something between us. Some sort of chemistry that went beyond friendship. She didn’t reveal this to me for another year.

Fast forward to one year later. Summer 2009. We’ll start with May, it was my sister’s 21^st birthday and she wanted to go out to eat on the plaza for the occasion. She invited a handful of people but only 2 came. Her boyfriend Chuck, and her friend David. I have photos of that night on facebook, underneath the name “CYT Robin hood, Alumni Follies, and Rachel’s 21^st birthday.” My sister and I are in the middle with our future husbands on either side.

One month later I was hanging out with David, and our other friends Sara, and Sydney. (Sara is the one who previously suspected things.) While watching movies, I was sitting next to David on the couch, Sara sat on the other side of me and Sydney was sitting in a chair. Sara was looking from me, to David, to Sydney, back to me, and so on for several minutes. I couldn’t figure out what was going on in her head. Later that night when it was just us, and we were no longer with David, I asked her what was up with the looks. She told me her thoughts from over a year ago, an how to the day she still saw it. She couldn’t ignore the way we acted around each other. We weren’t necessarily flirting with each other, but there was something there. We just fit. I was sitting next to him, and started to fall asleep so I leaned over and put my head on his shoulder. I didn’t think much about it. When Rachel sat next to him on tour she used his shoulder for a head rest. Sara insisted there was more and she could see us ending up together. I told her she had been upset, she was delusional, she was seeing things, etc. I told her, “This is David we are talking about! I think you’re off your rocker.” She finally agreed she was tired and had a rough day so I might be right.

August 2009, I moved to Springfield, and occasionally I got calls from David, checking in on me. Labor day weekend I went home to get more things, and to see my family. ( I was feeling a little homesick.) David was waiting for me to get home. He spent the whole evening with my family. It got to be around 11pm, maybe even a little later, my parents had finally called it a night and my sister was getting tired as well. My sister, David and I stood in the entry way talking for about 30 minutes. While standing there, David, who was standing next to me, leaned over and grabbed my hand. At first I didn’t know what to do. Everything that had happened, especially what Sara had said was running through my brain. I pulled my hand away just to see what he would do. He grabbed my hand again. I stood there processing what was happening. When Rachel was finally ready to call it a night I told her I was going to walk David out to his truck. I wandered if David would say anything about his behavior that night. At first we just talked about school, and everything going on. He put his arms around me, hugging me and didn’t let go. He told me about the crazy things of life he had going on. How he got offered a job in Colorado and was prepared to drive out for the interview, but his friend Raymond, (who was a groomsman in our wedding), got him a job at Cerner, when he didn’t think he was going to get it. He looked at me and told me, “Maybe some crazy day you and I could be together.” Saturday and Sunday I saw him before I left back to school on Monday. My parents liked David, but the sudden interest in me kind of threw them for a loop, and they weren’t terribly crazy about the idea of me and him dating, just as I started school in Springfield. They knew him well enough, but the fact was they weren’t sure where he stood in his beliefs, and just generally wanted to get to know him a little bit better. With in a few weeks my parents were more at ease and didn’t object to us dating as long as we took it slow. So the dating begun…