I love this man

A significant date can and went and I am just now getting the chance to document it.
There are several important dates in my life but when it comes to Jeff 2 stand out, July 11, 1998, my first date with Jeff. And January 5, 2002, the day we got married. It’s crazy to me thinking we have been together for 8.5 years!! And this past January we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.

Here’s a brief history of our relationship…
Jeff and I met at camp Koinonia. My first memory of him was when he were in Jr. high I thought he was a chunky spoiled little preacher’s kid who always had to be the center of attention. Through the years and our summers at camp together my impression of him changed. He grew into a tall handsome guy that was and incredible Christian leader. I’m not sure when my attraction for him began but I remember several summers I was dating another guy back home, but Jeff caught my eye. The summer of 1998, I was casually dating a new guy back home and when camp came around I learned that Jeff and his family where moving. His dad had accepted a preaching job 3 hours away. Not sure I would ever see him again, I broke out of my vow (to never tell I guy that I liked him..I liked the chase and all the flirting, coming straight out and telling them took all the fun away). In this case I made and exception because time was limited. However I wasn’t a friend of Jeffs and I rarely spoke to him. I talked to a mutual friend we were both close to and laid all my cards out on the table. Come to find out my guy friend told Jeff that I liked him, exactly and I had planned (writing it out, it sounds so jr. high, but I was a junior in high school). For the next two weeks I flirted like CRAZY with Jeff. All my little campers called me out on it and said I liked him because every time he walked into a room my face lit up and I got a huge smile on my face. I’m sure it was obvious to the whole camp…and the Saturday after camp ended, July 11, 1998, we went on our first date and started going steady. Our first date was a double date with Kyle Larson and Christi Geik at the Putt-Putt golf and games in Killeen. At the time Kyle and I wanted to go to college at Harding and Jeff and Christi wanted to go to college at ACU. We played a game of putt-putt girls verses boys and if the boys won then Christi would have to come to Harding but if the girls Jeff would have to go to college at Harding. To this day I’m not sure if they let the girl win or if we were just that skilled in putt-putt. Either way the girls won and a year later Jeff stuck to his promise of going to Harding.
Two weeks after our first date Jeff and I had our first kiss as he left to join his family in their move to a new town. He was my first long distance relationship and it was perfect for the time. I was entering my Senior year of high school and was all about spending time with my girlfriends (we were all going different ways for college). Six months into our relationship Jeff told me that me loved me (and I freaked out!) But deep down in my heart I knew he was the type of guy I wanted to marry.

The fall of 1999 we started our education at Harding together and it was an adjustment having him around ALL the time. I came to LOVE having him close by and we made so many wonderful friends and memories. We did a lot of growing up together those early years of college as we tried to find our own niche in life. After I spent a summer in Africa, we broke up temporary as our career dreams seemed to be heading in two different directions. I wanted to be mission in a 3rd world country and Jeff had his heart set on youth ministry. I came to realize that God had a plan for us to minister together and we were back together 3 days later. The following two summers we did a youth ministry internship together and I loved watching him in action.

The Friday before spring break of our sophomore year we were talking in my truck and on a whim decided that we were ready to get married. The original date was set for that coming July, we went to the library and put a budget together so we could prove to our parents that we would support ourselves. The next day we both revealed that July was too soon to get married so the date was moved to January 5, 2002. Over Spring break we picked out a ring together and Jeff asked for my dad for my hand in marriage. When we came back to school although I wasn’t surprised when he proposed but he had the sweetest proposal and I had my ring ceremony that night (he knew it was hard for me to keep a secret).

That January we got married and the rest is history! I’ve thought about how different my life would be if, back in High school I let him move without letting him know how I felt.
Come to find out he said he always had a crush on me but thought there was no way I would ever like him. So much has changed in our years together, it seems like we were just kids when we started dating and now were raising our own little ones.