it's a love story

With the approach of Valentine's day, I feel compelled to document the story of how Mike and I ended up happily ever after. I started to write it when we got engaged but never finished. So here it is!

Part 1-- Just Friends (Pre-College) 

     The first time I had a conversation with Mike was the summer after 9th grade when our parents made us take an SAT prep class. I knew his best friend Andy from our youth group and had seen Mike there a couple of times. He was hilarious, and spent the week making fun of me for having a crush on a guy who drove a purple truck. The class ended. The end.

     Fast forward 2 years. We went rock climbing with youth group and Mike came with Andy. I remember thinking he was totally cute as I watched him scale up the wall, but no talking or hanging out commenced.  (Here's a picture of Mike circa 11th grade:)

     So the summer after 11th grade I was dating one of his friends off and on (far right) and we started hanging out more. Our youth group had an annual summer retreat camping in North Carolina and Mike went. We spent the week together hanging out, mostly with a girl he liked and Byron. After that we started being friends-- we double-dated for senior homecoming & started hanging out more (still in groups.) And I remember being at our youth group's spring retreat talking to him about a girl that he liked and although I had absolutely no feelings for him, I was a little jealous (which I thought was weird.) Then we somehow got in a 'calling war' where we'd try to get the other in trouble (or annoyed) by calling at inappropriate times (during class, at church, at 4 in the morning, etc.)  & before we knew it we were inseparable, spending late nights in the Volvo or at the beach talking about life. 

     Fast forward: At Amy's graduation party we snuck down the beach and Amy and I kissed both Mike and his friend Taylor on a dare (we had a bet going to see how many boys we could kiss in a short period of time... oops...and little did I realize that it was his first!) Here's us around that time:

        We both got into UF and he went that summer. I talked to him all the time and when I went up for Preview, stayed the week after at the boy's dorm. There was something almost... magical... about being up there that week, even though at this point we didn't explicitly like each other. It was really the first taste of freedom and college... we walked around the empty campus holding hands and finding the highest staircases to explore the views, spiting off the edges. And he may have kissed me that week.

But at this point we were still just friends.

To be continued. This takes too long to think about.