~ Once upon a time, in a land about 1 hour and 15 minutes from here, a precious little boy was born...
Christopher
About a month later, just around 5 blocks from here, a precious little girl was born...
Holly
...and they grew up
Graduated from High School...
and both ended up at Anderson University!
I had been at AU for 2 years at this point, and was working for the campus Police and Security Services. It was the summer of 2000, and I was working a saturday morning. One Saturday each month over the summer, new, incoming students (freshmen and transfers)come to campus to register for classes, take entrance exams, and get their student I.D.
To be completely honest...I don't remembe this part of our story. I worked every one of those Saturdays that summer, and I can't tell you how many annoying new freshmen I met on those days. They thought they were the bomb...I was there to bring them back to reality.
So, per Chris, he came up, said something "cool" to me, and I was like, "Sit down, and smile." I took his picture, and he thought I was a jerk.
*So was our first meeting...again, per Chris
However, because I don't remember it, here's where our story starts for me ;0)
About a week before classes started, I moved into Myers Hall...
Myers Hall is the upper classmen dorm, and the dorm that many transfer students get moved in to.
Chris (a transfer student) moved down the hall.
Yes, it's a co-ed dorm....at a Christian University. We both lived on the second floor (there was a fire door between the guys and girls).
I knew Chris' roommate Stew...
My sister had just gotten married that weekend before, and I had about a billion of those little fake gold rings that you can buy at a craft store. So I went down the hall and "proposed" to all the girls on my floor. When I got to Chris and Stew's room I proposed to them too.
Chris had no idea I liked him...he thought I was just being silly proposing to people...but I couldn't very well just propose to him or it would've been super obvious! So I had to propose to Stew too (sorry Stewby, it's the truth...I never really wanted to marry you)!
A few weeks later, I invited Chris and Stew to come to my parents house for the Pendleton Homecoming Parade! After the parade we went to Applebee's for dinner...
Here's the first picture ever taken of us together!
After that night, we started hanging out alot, but didn't really start dating until a few months after we met (October 14th to be exact).
We'd take walks on campus at night, and talk about anything and everything. We would always end up at Warner Auditorium (it's no longer there). Sitting on a bench outside, this is where he kissed me the first time and where he first told me he loved me!
We dated for a little over 3 years. With lots of crazy memories in between!
Christmas 2003, Chris went home to spend Christmas with his parents and I was with my family.
The day after Christmas, he called me and said he was ready to come back to Anderson because he missed me. He wanted to take me out to dinner that night because we'd had a small Christmas.
He showed up at my door, with a red rose!
We went to Indianapolis, to the Cheesecake factory. While we were eating his jacket fell off his chair and when a woman pointed it out to him, he practically freaked out...
I was like, "What's your deal, it's just your jacket." He responded with, "Well my phones in there, I don't want it to get stepped on and broken."
After a yummy dinner, we headed downtown toward Circle Center Mall (Chris told me we'd walk around the mall, and I was wanting a new wallet, so we could look for that). When we got there he turned the opposite direction of the mall. I thought he was turned around, because at that time we didn't go downtown very often and didn't know our way around it as well. I kept trying to get him to go the othe way, and finally he said, "I can't take you on a horse carriage ride if we go THAT way!"
So we went on a carriage ride downtown, and around the circle. It was an odd kind of warm the day after Christmas that year. I remember thinking..."maybe he's going to propose on the carriage ride."
No such luck, the carriage ride finished and we started for the car. Much to his dismay, I "forced" him into the mall to look for a wallet.
We headed back to Anderson, and stopped at his apartment. I thought we were going to watch a movie at my house. He said he needed to stop for something, so this didn't strike me as odd when he walked out with a plastic bag.
Chris lived 2 blocks from campus. He drove on to campus, and up the Myers Hall drive. I looked at him quizically. He instructed me to get out of the car.
We walked up to the door, Chris pulled out a rose and handed it to me. He told me, "This is where we first met! We're going to take on a walk down memory lane!"
We then headed to Reardon Auditorium. He pulled out another rose and said, "This is where we had our first date. We came to a Jennifer Knapp concert."
We got back in the car. He told me we had one more place to go, and asked me if I knew where it was. I was pretty sure I did.
We pulled up to the front of Warner Auditorium. All the benches were pushed to one spot next to the building so Chris pulled one over to where we always sat. He asked me to stand on top of the bench (Chris is 6 foot 4, so this way we were more on the same eye level). He told me to close my eyes. I did.
He said, "This is where we had our first kiss and where I first told you I love you."
"Open your eyes."
Chris was on his knee, with the ring, and he asked me to marry him.
Here's one of our engagement pictures:
We graduated in May 2004 (the last class to have commencement in Warner Auditorium before they tore it down) and were married on October 9, 2004 (just 5 days shy of our 4 year dating anniversary)!
A picture from one of my bridal showers!
And have lived Happily Ever After since...
