One Year Ago: Dec. 6

Tuesday, Dec. 6:  Dad had said that he would talk to Joe and let him know that he could call me, so I knew there would be a call forthcoming;  on the way to meet Lisa for coffee that morning, my phone rang.  It was Joe.  My stomach flipped (and didn’t return to normal for a number of days).  He wanted to go out with me, and we agreed to do dinner at Olive Garden.  It was a short, fairly businesslike phone call.

I was fairly normal (if a little bit happy) with Lisa; came home, got a few things done, and took a second car to Good News Club.  The idea was that I’d be able to slip out the front after seeing the kids off and not raise suspicion from the sisters by leaving separately.  I was rather edgy at club; I remember sitting there on the floor with the kids and my stomach was just a mess.  I was so excited and nervous, but I lived through it and was heading around the front corner of the building to the parking lot when…there came Sarah, around the back corner.  I just headed for my car.  She said she was going home with me and I said that it wouldn’t work out this time—I had errands to run, or something like that.  I didn’t wait for more discussion; I booked it for the car and drove away, heading towards Olive Garden (the opposite direction from home).  I was in the left turn lane at 80th when Mom’s car pulled up in the right turn lane.  Oh, great.  They’ll see me.

I was about 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and I just didn’t want to sit and wait.  I pulled in to Ross and walked around for a while, looking for nothing in particular.  I was still a bit early when I pulled into Olive Garden.  Not being in the mood for just sitting in a parking space, I decided to drive circles around a neighboring parking lot. I was just finishing my first one when I saw Joe’s truck pulling in; I pulled in behind him

To shorten a rather long story, there in the parking lot Joe asked to court me with the intent of marriage (neither of us remember his exact words) and I agreed.  That out of the way, we proceeded inside where we talked for nearly four hours and ate hardly a thing.  (We did buy a little food out of kindness to the restaurant.) I’m not sure I quite stopped shaking the entire evening, and Joe says he didn’t either.  We discussed all manner of events (“Remember this?”), discovered (for the first time) that our liking was mutual, and in general had quite a lovely evening.  

That night we told our families about it.  I’ve heard reports that Joe talked for an hour and a half straight when he got home; he was a pretty happy man.  (See picture below for evidence).  My sisters were quite un-surprised, having done a much better job than I of piecing things together.  (Sarah’s rather hilarious version of the story is posted here.)

Joe, after getting home from our first date

So...that’s a little piece of our story.  Obviously our relationship progressed--after many dates, phone calls, letters, and such, we were engaged on Feb. 26, 2012 and married on Sept. 22, 2012.  We’re happy.  God has been so good to us.