A Beautiful Adventure

As you can see in the title, tomorrow is my one-year wedding anniversary! My wife is dramatic, musical, creative, and beautiful, and there has not been a single moment where I have regretted my decision to marry her. I hope it is the same for her because I'm sure she has wanted to smack me upside the head on more than one occasion. In honor of our anniversary, I thought I'd share how I met this crazy, wonderful woman who I decided to spend the rest of my life with.

PC: Carlina Jane Captures

Love at Multiple Sightings

After being in the US army for a few years, I would visit home every once in awhile and attend the local church my family frequented. One of these times I noticed a new family had started attending--a family with two daughters. The two daughters played violin for the song and worship portion of the service. Even though I was in a relationship at the time, my dad pointed out to me, "Hey, look at that girl playing the violin. You should get to know her!" (Sorry, that may not an exact quote, but you get the picture). I definitely noticed this violin-playing beauty after that, but I did not go up and talk to her (for obvious reasons).

After a few more visits back home and being dumped by my girlfriend, I finally got a chance to introduce myself to violin girl, and by introduce myself, I mean awkwardly shake her hand and smile when she left the building (sigh . . . boy, was I scared). What's even more funny is that I did this every chance I got.

Then everything changed one New Years Eve. I was at a church New Years Eve party playing board games when violin girl came and sat at my table. I laughed at all of her jokes (sincerely) and smiled intently. Finally I got up the courage to awkwardly shake her hand again, make eye contact, and tell her it was nice to see her. Go me! I went back to my military base in Washington state, found her on Facebook, and decided to message her. I am ashamed to admit that at the time I also started messaging another girl who happened to be friends with violin girl. They ended up finding out. Whoops! The other girl was already talking to someone else and uninterested in me, but violin girl thought the whole thing funny and decided to give me a chance.

I had a couple of relationships prior to violin girl, and I had learned that I had a bad habit of saying "I love you" too soon so I decided to focus on just getting to know her before dropping it. When I did finally say it, I found out she wasn't able to date until she was finished with high school (about four months from then, we are a few years apart). In the mean time I just continued to get to know her. When we did officially begin dating, boy, were there some doubts. We spent our three years dating long distance, as well as our one-year engagement also long distance.

The distance may have been difficult, but it was all so worth it. I thank God every day that I get to be married to my wife. I don't know what I would do without her (for one, she edits for me).