Our Story

First of all, let me tell you that we made it home safely from Florida. My lack of posting does not mean that we are dead in a ditch somewhere. My lack of posting is simply because of the sheer fact that this Mama is just feeling a little overwhelmed!

However, today is a VERY special day, and therefore, a post is in order!

Today, Hubs and I are celebrating our 18th anniversary. Now, when I say that today we are celebrating, this does not mean that we are actually "celebrating". We are not even in the same town for our anniversary! Hubs is having a very romantic dinner with another man from his company as we speak. Ha! Just kidding. It is strictly a business thing.

We did get to go out and celebrate our anniversary this past weekend. It's still kind of a bummer to not have Hubs around on our special day, but whatcha gonna do. It is what it is.

Anyway, in a previous post, I promised that, in March, I would tell you all how Hubs and I met, fell in love, and got married. So, here we go...

I was fifteen years old at the time. My family and I lived in Maine, and we attended a Bible study at a friend's house. We had been attending this Bible study for a little while, when Hubs started coming. It was kind of strange that he started attending, because this Bible study was being held at his friend's house, but his friend did not attend. For some reason, Hubs wanted to attend.

So, we got to know each other on a friend basis. I thought Hubs was the best thing since sliced bread, but since he was three years older than I was, he just thought of me as a nice kid, who had a nice family that he liked to hang out with.

Hubs' parents are divorced, and he did not grow up with his Dad. After he graduated from high school, Hubs decided that he wanted to move down to Virginia so he could be near his Dad and get to know him better.

I was pretty sure that I would probably never see him again.

But, God had other plans.

Fast forward almost four years....

I was nineteen years old, and I was attending Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Here is a picture of me in college. Try not to be jealous of the hair.

I had decided to go there because I knew a friend who attended there, and it seemed like a great school. It was also a fair distance away from my family, and at that time in my life, that sounded like a good idea.

It was Dec. 5th, and I was attending a basketball game with my roommates.

It was half-time, and we were up walking around, stretching our legs. As I was walking around, I saw this guy who I thought looked a lot like Hubs.

I thought about going up to him and asking him if he remembered me, but I was trying to talk myself out of it. It just sounded too....I don't know. Just not me.

However, I decided that I would do it. What could it hurt?

So, I went up to him, and asked him if he was, indeed, the boy I knew from Maine. I called him by his nickname. He just looked at me with the strangest expression on his face! Remember, the last time I had seen him, I was a fifteen year old "kid". Now, I was nineteen.... and no longer a kid.

Ahem.

I told him who I was, and asked him if he remembered me.

He told me that he did, and asked WHAT I was doing HERE?

I told him that I went to school here, and was watching the basketball game. He mentioned that he lived about an hour away in a neighboring town. He was there with his Dad, and he just so happened to have an extra seat next to him. He asked me if I wanted to come and sit with him so we could catch up on what had been going on in our lives the past few years.

Just the fact that he had an extra seat next to him was a minor miracle, because that place was PACKED.

I told my roommate that I was going to go and sit with him, and we spent the next half of the game catching up.

We do not consider our meeting again a mere coincidence. We believe that it was God who brought us back into each other's lives.

His Dad invited me over to their house, and I gladly accepted.

While I was at their house, the funniest thing happened to me. I had to use the bathroom, and while I was sitting there on the toilet, one of the bathroom drawers mysteriously OPENED UP and a tiny little furry head POPPED out at me! I screamed and got out of there as FAST as I could! All I could think of was that it was a mouse!

Do you know what it was?

It was their pet ferret, Bandit. Apparently, Bandit liked to hide in the bathroom drawers, and scare the heck out of unsuspecting house guests. Mission accomplished, Bandit! The whole family got a big laugh out of it, and it is brought up often to this day. I will never be able to live that one down. Sigh.

Anyway, Hubs drove me home that night, and invited me to church with him the next morning. I went back to my room that night, and called up my parents. I told my Mom that she was NEVER going to believe who I was going to church with in the morning! She couldn't believe it, and said that she thought that he was engaged, as that is what we had heard through the grapevine. I happily told her that, NO, he was not :)

So, Hubs and I saw each other as much as we could during the next two weeks. Why only two weeks? Because, I was leaving school for Christmas break.....and I was not coming back.

To be continued....