.our love story, part 2 - i blame haiti.

we arrive in Haiti and begin to dive right into ministry. mind you, many of my family members are on this trip and noticing how much time jarred & i are spending getting to know each other. i even at one point said to my sister-in-law, "i'm going to intentionally not hang out with him today. i am in no way wanting a relationship with anyone and i don't want hanging out with him to get in the way of why i'm on this trip." she just gave me this little chuckle and said, "okay!" in her most excited voice - i love that girl... this baby-snuggling guy was unintentionally putting off the "i'm awesome" vibes. the bottom baby is our future niece :)

we proceeded through our week filled with medical clinics and time at the mission (the orphanage), chats on the beach and in the hotel lobby in the evenings and time spent with family and friends, getting to know one another. the ignoring didn't work out so well for either of us. i mean how can you ignore a darling man in scrubs sewing up fingers and treating babies?!??! impossible.

it was evident by mid-trip that we really dug each other - friend or future spouses, whatever it be, we dug each other. my mom was walking with a friend by the pool and sandi said to my mom, "that's your future son-in-law, you know that right?" what sandi failed to realize is that jarred was within ear shot of her :) neither of us had any clue at that point how true those words were. for me, it was just a camp crush - we'd go home and it would all be over.

after many late nights talking on the above beach of amazingness, we decided the last night that we finally needed to talk about this "thing" that everyone around us was talking about and we were avoiding - because neither of us were in a place to be in a relationship... what we determined was this: we dug each other, we wanted to stay friends, he had some loose ends to tie up at home & some choices to make so the idea of dating was tossed out the window, we planned to see each other about 3 months later when he made his way up the california coast.

i look back now and i am incredibly thankful that neither of us were relationship-ready because we'd have been much more worried about impressing each other. instead it was a simple friendship of kindred spirits - sweaty, gross, exhausted, full-hearted kindred spirits, serving in haiti. we traded seats to sit together on the flight home and made each other playlists on our iphones just like crushing junior highers and went our separate ways. that's how we left it where we'd met - at the DFW airport. just friends. until...

.our love story, part 1 - how we met.

***pre-post disclaimer: i promise to get to the wedding part... for my own sake more than yours, i want to have our story recorded here with pictures so i thought i'd start about 18 months ago and keep the suspense going :) march 2011 - DFW airport food court (most romantic meet-your-husband spot in the world) i roll in at 5am on a red eye flight from LAX. go ahead and picture me post all-night travel on my way to haiti for the first time by way of DFW. go ahead, i dare you. it's not pretty. i'm 3 weeks post-breakup, traveling to haiti on a scouting trip for work, mostly excited to spend 8 days with my parents, my sister-in-law, my aunt and a good friend from texas who i was meeting up with for the rest of the journey. my parents come and find me, we walk to get some breakfast at the food court where the rest of the crew was. i hug the 8 people i know and i very briefly meet the 5 i don't know (including my now husband). my initial thought is, "he's cute, but probably either married or too young for me and i'm not interested in him either way because i am anti-relationship right now and maybe forever. being single rules, you don't get hurt or waste time if you stay single." i proceeded to have an obnoxiously loud conversation with said texas friend over breakfast and think nothing more of jarred's presence. (below is our first team picture and is said to be the only picture from the trip where jarred & i are not standing together)

we get stranded in fort lauderdale. we sit, on the floor, for hours and i end up sitting with him and texas friend reading endless entries of "damnyouautocorrect" and laughing hysterically while other, more responsible adults (a.k.a. my parents) try to figure out how to get us to haiti.

we then sit in our same triad and start talking relationships, naturally. texas friend and i are both in/out of relationships and completely frustrated by it though at this point she tells me, "i think i'm gonna marry this one." we let out a girlish squeal and jarred looks at us like we're bananas. we are, but at least we're being ourselves. we then ask jarred about his relationship status and he says he doesn't want to talk about it. after much prodding from relentless women, he tells very little except that he's in a rocky relationship. i remember thinking, he's cute, but he's technically unavailable and i am so not dating anytime soon. i remember being charmed by his sarcastic sense of humor and impressed with the way he tolerated the girl talk. and i remember intentionally choosing to not hang around him because there was something about him i liked and i wasn't about to get hurt.

turns out our "stranded in fort lauderdale" story ended up being an overnight stranded. so we went to dinner and i remember sending my best friend a text after dinner saying, "uh-oh, i have a crush on a guy on our team. camp crush, i promise it won't go anywhere because neither of us are in a dating place." i had to confess to someone, right? i felt better having confessed. after dinner, 4 of us ended up going to the beach in fort lauderdale and opting for a midnight fully clothed swim in the atlantic.

at this point i was drawn to his adventurous spirit and realized how much i enjoyed spending time with him. i decided that the week was either going to be really good or really difficult. i mean who has a crush on a guy that's in a rocky relationship day one of a mission trip? (keep in mind we met when i was 29, not 15...) who does that?

haiti, here we come...

.wedding moments, in photos.

i'm not quite ready to write about my wedding yet. my thoughts are gathering, but not complete - lingering, but not concrete. they'll get there, i promise. and when they do, i will write. but for now, here are a few moments captured in pictures by family and friends for you to get a little taste of the awesomeness that is on its way. it honestly was THE BEST day of my life. so incredible in every teensy little way. the night before we got married, so giddy & in love...

chasing my one-year-old nephew around while getting ready, i'll miss him being this little...

my aunt got our first kiss as a mr & mrs...

my sweet niece taking in the cake-cutting...

our dads watching our love story video together...

oh my melting heart... this little guy loves his "yaya," my mom and i love how this picture just captures his fun personality...

stealing a kiss...

.the spotless kitchen.

***pre-post side note: our wedding was FLIPPING AWESOME. hands down best day of my life to date. will post pictures/thoughts when i have a moment to gather them without feeling overwhelmed.

day 1 of post-honeymoon wife-ness. my kitchen is spotless... why, you might ask? well, let me explain... when your husband of 5 days moved in while you were already at your wedding destination, it is a very bad thing for the house you come home to. i am SO loving being a wife and i think it's the greatest thing to wake up with a man with a ring on his left hand in my bed and drink coffee with him in the morning. i love wife life. what i don't love is a messy house. when said husband moves in and all then soon-to-be wife receives is pictures of every room in the house sprinkled with piles of clothing, kitchen gadgets and creatine, boxer shorts and clothes from high school, wife wants to cry.

when we got home from (mini) honeymoon #1, my sweet little teensy bit ocd heart was overwhelmed.in his defense, he did the best he could with the time he had and i'm thankful he showed up for his flight to the wedding. however, i'm swimming in laundry, clothes & need-to-be-re-organized cabinets and closets. when i get overwhelmed, what do i do? oh i make sure the kitchen is spotless... all the time. i think it's something that's small enough that i can control and something i see multiple times a day so i have yet to touch any piles of anything else, i simply just keep going from the kitchen to the computer - thinking about the piles. my poor little overwhelmed wife brain. the best news? tonight we're going OUT for dinner so i don't have to clean the kitchen again :) soon enough, i'll get a handle on this wife thing.

.learning to accept gifts.

i am getting married in 9 days. holy moly. i'm really getting married in 9 days. here are a few things i've learned in this season and i don't want to forget i've learned them so i'm writing them down: - i've learned that i'm lame at accepting gifts - i've learned that no matter how many times i say "thank you" it rarely seems sufficient for all that my family & friends have done for jarred & i in the last few months

- i've learned that i had NO IDEA how much work planning a wedding would be

- i've learned to say LOTS of "i don't care's" - it's just how this bride is coping these days - i've learned about true friendship, true family ties and that those people bring so much life and light into stressful situations

- i've learned that loving someone is so much more than saying "i do", that forgiving quickly is not an easy thing and that marriage will indeed be the hardest, best thing i've ever done

- i've learned that beginning a marriage is a community project and i can't do it without the people God has oh-so-graciously placed around me

but i think of all those things, the hardest one for me is accepting gifts. i still haven't totally learned that. i felt awkward at bridal showers, i feel weird when things show up to our house and we didn't pay for them. i feel really really badly that i won't see a bill for our wedding, nor our couches, nor our honeymoon because we have ridiculously generous parents who love us more than words on paper could convey. i feel bad about these things because i have an over-active sense of responsibility and in these last 4 months, i've not been allowed to take care of myself or anyone else - i've been doted on, pampered, showered with prayers, gifts and love and spoiled rotten. and i'm still working on accepting it. i have not doubt that my wedding day will be the best day of my life to date and no doubt that it will all be 100% worth it, but sometimes it's hard to let others give and give and give.

i think what my Creator is trying to teach me is that all these things - just a TINY glimpse of his grace, his gifts, his forgiveness, his mercy. all these huge things that others are unselfishly doing for us - just little bitty glimpses of how he loves. and i'm learning to accept the awesomeness that Jesus gives by being forced to accept the awesomeness of his people unselfishly giving in my life. and all i can say is, "i'm overwhelmingly grateful."