"I said I love you, and that's forever, and this I promise from the heart; I could not love you any better. I love you just the way you are."
-"Just The Way You Are" by Diana Krall

So in 4 days, the trees in my backyard have gone from...
this...



to this....

They look gorgeous. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

Okay, so the rest of this post is going to be the story of how Michael and I met and came to be. Most of you are way beyond familiar with this story, so feel free to skip. But my memory sucks, and some day I'd like to be able to look back and see things that I don't remember then... So yeah! And if you don't know the story, then.. I hope you enjoy?



So, I suppose the whole thing started in the summer of '05 when my parents told me that we were moving back to Wichita after living in Olathe for six years. I... wasn't the happiest camper in the world. After all, I was going to be a high school junior, and what kind of horrible parents would make their kids move. (Okay, my parents are pretty much the best in the world, and they did what they needed to for us.) They knew I wasn't happy, so they pretty much let me and my little sister decide where we wanted to live. We looked at several towns right outside Wichita, but for some reason (I say the man upstairs pointed me in the right direction...), Goddard stuck out to me... so there we moved.

I had to go to marching band camp at the end of the summer, which was an entirely crazy experience. It was entirely overwhelming, and I don't remember too much from it. But one thing I will never forget is this one trumpet player screaming at his section. I mean... it was scary. So I made a mental note at that point to steer clear of him.

Fast forward to second semester that year... 7th hour history. That crazy, screaming trumpet player sat next to me (assigned seating...). He seemed nice enough and all that, but I distinctly remember one day thinking, "I will never date a guy like him. Or him for that matter." Oh... how God must have chuckled when I thought that. .. I definitely do when I look back on it now.

In February that year... a very tragic thing happened, but didn't really impact me. Although, it hit Michael very close. I remember him being gone a lot during that time, and when he did come to class, he seemed and looked really tired and depressed. I think it was during that time that I started paying more attention to him, and just wanted to help him... to make him feel better...

After that, nothing really changed until the end of that summer... during my marching band section's initiation. For some odd reason that scary trumpet player was there... But I found myself wanting to talk to him. I still wasn't positive exactly how he was connected to the tragedy.. though I heard plenty from other people. I didn't feel like partaking in the water balloon fight that was going on outside... so I hid in my friend's basement, where he happened to be also. There was another one of our friend's down there too.. it was a little awkward... but there were some good conversations too. I found myself becoming more and more attracted to this guy that I never said I'd date.

As school started, our "group" of friends hung out almost every weekend, and I found myself trying to impress him, even though I was consciously trying not to impress him. I knew it wasn't helping... I had a pretty low self-esteem and whatnot... so I just crushed on him from afar... spying on him from across the room during band, or across the field during marching band... always swooning when he played his solo for "After The Love Has Gone" for our marching show. =) And before we would perform for marching band, I started a "free hugs" campaign. (One practice I gathered around 200 hugs from people in the band... including 2 or 3 from him...)

August turned into September turned into October with seemingly no interest from him. I was getting to know him through talking to him on MSN... But he seemed to be interested in other people. So I just kinda went with it. The closest thing to him seeming interested in me was during the KU marching fest when I hadn't given him his hug and he actually asked about it. That pretty much made my week. He introduced me to a prayer... that I later found in a cross-stitch. So I proceeded to do the complete cross-stitch (still the only one to this day I have finished.) After he had a rough couple days, I gave it to him half-finished. Which I don't normally do. He didn't seem really impressed... But I finished it anyway.

One day, I was seriously going to give up on ever getting to date him. I just figured that it was a hopeless cause. But after school one day one of my friends told me not to give up hope, and basically smacked him in the head.
After that... he actually asked me to see a movie at his house...Which was great... and then he went to get coffee at a local coffee shop for our first official "date". It was that night that I gave him the completed cross-stitch and he seemed thankful.. but who could be sure. =)

After that.. things started rolling. We had a great night at the coffeehouse and the movie at his house was really good too. There was an incident during a movie night close to Halloween... (heh.. it involved 2 other guys, trespassing and the police.. but ya know) and other movie nights.

Finally... two years ago tomorrow night... he came over to my house and asked me out. Awwww.

And so the rest... is history. There was no way I could have known two years ago that I'd be sitting here this day talking about how in love I am with this man... my best friend. He's the most amazing man and boyfriend, and I am so beyond blessed to be able to call him my lover. He's been through more so far in his life than many people go through in a lifetime, but he's better for it. He's my other half and I can't even imagine life without him. I love him more than words could ever say. Yeah, we have our fights, squabbles and disagreements on things.. but at the end of the day, we work things out and I'd have it no other way.


=) Tomorrow night we're going out to dinner in this crazy fancy place and all that jazz... I'll be sure to take pictures of the pretty food and events from the night.

So until...tomorrow....
love
alex