a month late

Well, due to some other circumstances(a 6 day old) we weren't able to celebrate our anniversary on the actual date last month. But we did manage to do it exactly a month late.

Well, it all started here...January 2, 2004. On a whim, Mindy, my best friend and I decided to attend a Young Adult Retreat sponsored by the United Methodist Church...Larry just happened to be on the planning committee for it. It was held at the Swan Lake Resort near Plymouth, Indiana.

(the spot where we met)

We got there fairly early and were hanging out in the hallway outside where the sessions for the retreat would take place. One of the first people that we met happened to be this associate pastor from Fort Wayne, name Larry. I didn't think much about our meeting, but apparently he did. Later that evening he plotted how he could end up sitting next to me for dinner, so he could get to know me a bit more. He waited till almost everyone was already seated before going in to eat and figured he had a better chance of sitting next to me that way. We talked some during dinner, and later he asked for my email, under the guise that he could contact me if there were other young adult events in the Ft. Wayne area. He also quickly asked my friend for her email, when she appeared beside me, to make his motives seem less suspicious perhaps.

He left the retreat early so that was all the interaction we were able to have...me, I was pretty oblivious to anything brewing in his mind...Mindy, on the other hand had her suspicions. (Guess she had a good intuition.)

We left the retreat Saturday and I didn't think a think about him until I got an email on Monday asking for any feedback on the retreat(he was part of the planning committee). I didn't reply right away due to Internet access and time constraints...but, he didn't give up so easily.

Wednesday of that same week I received a phone call at school during the day. Well, since I can't take calls during class the caller was asked to call back around 3:15, when school was out and I could be in the office to get this phone call. So there I sat, dutifully waiting by the phone for the call, while grading papers. I was a bit surprised at the caller, as I hadn't given him my number. I thought he was calling to find out about any feedback on the retreat and I apologized that I hadn't replied to his email. He replied that it wasn't exactly the reason that he called, but he wanted to know if I would like to go out this weekend.....pause....uh, sure. Come to find out later he had remembered from dinner conversation that I worked at a Christian school and the name of the school was fairly simple(Central). I have to give him credit as he called one other school, which was wrong in the process of trying to find me. This guy had won points in my book...he wasn't letting that stop him.

Well, we went out that Saturday and as the saying goes...the rest is history!

Our dinner views.

We have plenty to praise God for; His guiding hand in our meeting and marriage...and a persistent man who won my heart!