Sappy, I know, but I can't resist including the story of how we met, fell in love, and ended up the old married couple that we are :) So here is the chronology of our life together:
2001: Drew was a freshman in high school, I was a sophomore (scandalous!) We were introduced by a mutual friend... let's call her M. M invited Drew to the homecoming dance and we ended up talking some... now real sparks, just talking to the guy my friend was interested in. As that school year progressed we talked some but didn't really hang out or anything.
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| First Picture together in 2002 |
2002: At the beginning of the school year we discovered we were neighbors, as in 5 houses apart, rode the same bus, how the hell did we not know each other, neighbors. Drew doesn't remember when he moved into my neighborhood, it was either the summer before freshman year or the summer before sophomore year ('01 or '02). Either way, we started talking (and flirting!) on the bus home from school.
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| Homecoming 2003 |
By the end of September, Drew was coming over my house several days a week after school where we both pretended we weren't REALLY interested or anything :) I remember Drew writing his cell phone number on my hand, and stealing his phone to try to guess his lock code (it was his birthday, how original). My best girl friends new I was interested, and invited Drew to my surprise birthday party... at which he was the only boy (how brave of him)
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| Prom 2003 |
In the beginning of October, Drew got up the guts to ask me to the homecoming dance. We got all dolled up, danced awkwardly together and acted like total dorks.
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| Prom 2004 |
10-26-02- at 10pm (crazy that I remember the EXACT time) I was one the phone with Drew while at a friends house. Drew asked me if I wanted to "go out sometime, or something" to which I excitedly said yes, and got off the phone. I frantically told my 3 best friends about it, but then we didn't know... were Drew and I "going out" as in boyfriend-girlfriend... or were we just going to go out sometime? Talk about ensuing panic. Luckily, friend M (from earlier in our story) called Drew back to make sure he really wanted to be my boyfriend. Thankfully he did or that would have been SUCH an awkward conversation.
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| Homecoming 2004 |
Neither of us had our licenses at the beginning, but since we were 5 houses apart, it wasn't really an issue. My dad made fun of that "kid who was riding the really small bike" one day as Drew rode his little brother's bike down to my house. For the next two years, we were a typical high school couple. We walked each other to class, stole kisses whenever we could, and often drove together to school (usually in my '95 dodge caravan complete with my 6 year-old brother's car seat in the back, talk about embarrassing)
Then summer of 2004 came along... I had graduated from high school, but Drew still had a year left (remember the scandalous age difference? It's really only 12 days, but 1 year apart in school) I was going away to a school 2 hours away, but had promised to come home every weekend and to call every day.
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| Hiking trip |
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| Mini golf |
That school year was rough on our relationship. I was a freshman in college, experiencing freedom for the first time, and unsure how much I should let Drew affect my decisions (we were only 18). Let's just say we both were stubborn, needy, and angry. By the end of the school year Drew and I were "on a break" (notice the "Friends" reference anyone?). During those two months I dated someone else for a little, and tried to pretend I wasn't missing Drew. However, I didn't really have a chance to miss Drew since I'm pretty sure we talked and/or hung out just about every day of our break up.
By July we were back together, and better than ever. Drew was going to join me at the same college in the fall (somehow he even managed to get into the same dorm), and we were ready to move on from our mistakes the previous year (okay, mostly my mistakes... but he wasn't perfect either!)
From 2005-2008 we were at school together. The first two years we were in the dorms together. '05-'06 we were in the same building, just 1 floor apart. '06-'07 we were only 3 doors apart :) We partied together, studied together, and realized that we were going to be together forever (cue sappy romantic music). Yes we had our fights (omg, did we have our fights!) but I don't think we had ever been happier in our relationship, we were becoming "adults" together and figuring out what we wanted out of life. Fall of 2007 we decided to "take the next step", living together. It was met with a little skepticism from our parents (oh no, living together before marriage, sharing a room, the horror! the horror!) but it was amazing. We set up our own little happy home, and got to see sides of each other that we had never seen
before (yet, we still liked each other!)
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| kissy fish! |
We talked a lot about the future that year, we were graduating in the spring, where did we want to go from there? I harassed and bugged Drew until he finally gave in, and on December 26th 2007 he proposed on the beach by our house (he told me were were going to look for sand dollar... we didn't find any) Drew had done the sweet (and totally brave) tradition of asking my father's permission to marry me. Granted he waited until my dad was on the roof of the shed shoveling snow (less chance of attack) but my dad didn't seem to mind much. His exact words were "Well, I let you have my beer-making stuff... I guess you can have my daughter too." Gee thanks Dad, glad to know where I rank in the scheme of things!
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| Medieval Times in '08 |
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| Swimming with dolphins in '08 |
We graduated from college in May of 2008 (super-smart Drew managed to get his B.A. in business economics in three years, while it took lame Amanda 4 years to get her B.S. in Elementary Education.) We began planning our wedding earnest. Both of us moved back into our parent's houses and got jobs. Drew worked construction with the guy he had worked with in high school, I worked as a long-term substitute teaching middle school and worked after school at a daycare program. We saved our money, planned parts of our wedding and battled with my mom to get our way about the wedding. It was a rough year as we tried to navigate those slippery slopes of impending nuptials. We didn't want to offend family members (especially those who were paying for parts of the wedding) but we also wanted it to be OUR wedding, not theirs. Our two families didn't always see eye to eye (well, I guess neither did we) so there were a lot of battles, passive-aggressive comments and awkward silences, but we made it through to:
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| Engagement photos |
JUNE 26th 2009 (anyone notice the theme of the 26th being an important number... anyone?) To read about our wedding day, continue here.
