Happy Engagiversary to Us!

Dave and I met at Bible college in September 2002. We first made contact at the retreat at the beginning of the year. We ended up hanging out and talking about music instead of playing soccer with everyone (if anyone knows my history with soccer, you will understand, it's where the whole "pylon" thing started). My honest first impression of him was "oh God, don't let him like me!" But I was hoping to find someone that would be interested in going to shows with me, and he seemed to be into that kind of thing too. I was dating someone else back home anyway, so I could keep my guard up around boys (Bible college is awful for that, people go just to find a wife/ husband, so annoying!).

So we were kind of friends in September, and then in October we started hanging out a lot, with our friend Jared too. The three of us did everything together and stayed out all night every night (I still pulled off 80's and 90's in my classes, wahahaha! I wish I could say the same for them...). In November Jared and I went to Dave's parents place for the weekend. At one point Jared was not there and Dave and I were kind of playing around on the couch, and out of nowhere he kissed me. It was great, and it was totally what I wanted, but I also knew in that moment that everything had to change. I had to dump my boyfriend (who was super-pissed of course, and even though he lived 7 hours away, he showed up at my college the next day, talk about freaky!). But after all that drama was over I continued to have heaps of fun with Dave.

That was seriously the best time of my life. A lot of our passions and life goals and perspectives lined up, so we got talking marriage. God actually told Dave that he was to marry me (but he was smart and didn't tell me until after we were married).

My mom used to run a winter camp every year on the Valentine's Day weekend for a bunch of local youth groups, and I went to it throughout highschool. That year Dave, Jared, his girlfriend Katie, and I went and lead the worship. My dad stopped by one night to see how we were doing (the snomobile trail went right by the camp), and Dave caught him alone at one point to ask if he could marry me (all together now, "aww"), and my dad said yes. So later that night, on Feb. 15, 2003, Dave asked me to marry him. He did it during the talent show, while my brother was playing guitar up front. So it was very exciting.

We spent the next 6 months planning a cheap but beautiful wedding, and we got married at my parent's cottage August 24, 2003. After our honeymoon was over (we got a tent as a wedding gift so we went camping!), we had officially known each other for 1 year.

It's crazy because I didn't want to get married until I was at least 25, and I didn't want kids till my 30's, but there I was, just barely 20 years old, happily married, and I wouldn't want it any other way! I hate being a Bible college bride, but what can I do? Now I am 26, still VERY happily married, and have been blessed with 3 incredible children. My life is nothing like I envisioned it, but it's better than I ever imagined.