8. In between Marriage and Moving

After the wedding nothing really exciting happened for a while. The highlight of the few months after we got married were... we adopted a hound dog that Leann found on her dad's development. That's about it. What a good dog he is, though! Anyway, in July Caleb said "You should google outfitting businesses for sale and see what you find". So I did.

7. The Big Day

I don't remember much of what happened between Summer of 2006 and the wedding. It seemed to go by so quickly! My mom and I planned my dream wedding together. It was so much fun! I had known where I wanted to get married since I was a little girl. There was a perfect spot in one of my Dad's hay fields, right at the top of a small rise, up against a tree line. It was beautiful! 

6. The Visit, and What Became of It

It was August 3rd, and we were finally on our way to Colorado to visit him. I could hardly sit still for the trip. The anticipation was killing me! I couldn't wait to be in his arms again. It seemed like an eternity since I had seen that ruggedly handsome face. The drive took two days. Mostly because we had to stop at a hotel in time for my sister to swim in the pool before bed...

5. Guns, saddles, and separation...

And so I got on the plane and went home to Oklahoma. He was waiting for me at the airport. It was sort of a whirlwind for the next few months. That night that we decided to be a "couple" was April 21st. The next week, after I was home from NC, he sat down with my father and asked permission to date me. They had a long, serious talk, while my mom and I sat downstairs and wondered what exactly they were talking about. They never told us all of it. At least I don't think they did. But they both came down alive, and that was all that mattered! Oh, that and the fact that my dad gave him his blessing. That's always a good thing to have. I have a feeling that there might've been some small amount of threatening involved during that conversation; I can only imagine that it went something like this... "Now son, I can do things with a scalpel that you don't even want to imagine..." But I can't be certain about that.

4. Let's Get Together, yeah yeah yeah

... BUT, I didn't need to get up the nerve, after all! One evening he came over to my house. We didn't ride horses that day, but I was leaving to go to North Carolina the next morning, and I really wanted to see him before I left, so I invited him to hang out while I packed. I made sure that when he arrived I was trying on a really cute dress. I had it all figured out! (He liked the dress, by the way.) Then I remembered that I had let my friend's boyfriend borrow my English textbook. He only lived ten minutes away, so we jumped in the truck and went to go pick it up.

3. Getting To Know You...

So we didn't ride off into the sunset on that first ride, but we did start riding horses together more often. Before that, however, as much as it pains me to think about it, the boyfriend came back into the picture. Remember how I said that I should've seen right through it when the boyfriend asked me to go to church with him that day? Well, I guess he took that as a little bit more than it was meant to be, because after that day, he was quite interested in pursuing my affections. I was more interested in the best friend of the boyfriend, however he didn't show in any way that he was even the slightest bit interested in me. It was frustrating. So here we have a twisted love triangle. I liked the best friend, whose best friend, (who was the ex-boyfriend of my best friend), liked me. If that wasn't confusing, I don't know what is!

2. How we met...

We first met when I was a sophomore in high school. I had started tenth grade at a small school, after being home-schooled. I became friends with a girl there named Leann, whom I had actually met before, at church camp. We started riding horses together (all the good things that have happened in my life seem to begin the same way... you'll see what I mean later.) This was January. It was cold. We became best friends in that cold, bonding over incidents like the time where Leann's cell phone fell out of her pocket while we were riding... we spent several frigid, tooth-chattering hours searching for it. I had so much fun with Leann. We spent almost every waking hour together for most of high school. And she had a boyfriend. His name is not important. What is important is that this boyfriend of hers had a best friend too.

1. Before I met him, my love life was...

... slightly turbulent. I had boyfriends on and off (but mostly on) from my sophomore year in high school, to when I met him. With a very short break in there somewhere... 
I was pretty concerned with the thought that I might never meet the perfect guy, and that I might be stuck settling for someone with only some  of the requirements on my (rather long) list. If I recall correctly, there were three or four young men that took me on what might be considered "dates" in that period of 5 or 6 years. Maybe more. I try not to think about it. There was (what was supposed to be) a six month break in there somewhere, when I went traipsing off to Africa to be guy-less, which went great until I met a guy. It didn't work out, obviously. 
<--- Creepy picture of me in Africa with 187 braids.