a love story {part 7}

Up to this point, I have been covering our courtship in a fairly detailed manner, spending 6 posts on about 6 months.

That, my dear friends, is all about to change. So hang on, because this post is going to cover an entire year and a half.

So, where did we leave off?

Oh, yes. We had just gotten engaged.

I think we did make it home for curfew that night, but just barely. My roommates were all in bed by the time I walked in the door, and in my excitement I ran into through the apartment turning on lights and woke them all up to tell them the news and show them my ring. I'm sure I scared them out of their senses. But they were excited too, when they realized what the heck was going on. Best. Roomies. Ever.

Shout out to all you girls, I know you're reading this...

At first, we were planning to marry that summer. But as you know, that did not happen because if it had, it would be my eleventh anniversary, and I would not be writing this. There were a lot of reasons we decided to wait, and the whole story is quite long and probably pretty boring...

So here is what you need to know...

Kevin graduated in May and went back to Lincoln, Nebraska (his hometown) for the Summer to work. He had decided that he was going to spend the next school year in China with his mom and stepdad, who were doing missions work there.

I went home to Idaho for the Summer to work, as well. But I got to fly out to Lincoln for about a week or so around my birthday to spend time with Kevin and his family.

Right after he picked me up from the airport he took me to a restaurant with one of those great photo booths and we got these pictures...

I love those things. Maybe we'll find one this week for anniversary pictures...

As the Summer drew to a close, we both went back to Pensacola, me to go back to college, and Kevin to catch his flight to China. It probably goes without saying that I was dreading his departure. I really didn't know how I was going to make it through 9 months without him. But I also knew that if our relationship could survive a 9 month overseas separation, it could probably survive just about anything.

I cried the entire day he left. In fact, I remember having to pull over as I was leaving the airport because I was sobbing so hard I couldn't see.

But gradually the ache in my heart became more bearable, and I gradually settled back into the college routine and determined that I was going to enjoy my last year of school and the great girls I lived with.

Plus, I had a wedding to plan to keep me distracted.

We e-mailed almost every day. And then we discovered this cutting edge thing called instant messaging. All five of the girls in our apartment shared one desktop and we had dial up internet, so as you can imagine, it really wasn't really "instant" messaging. But it was something. We had one 15 minute phone conversation in those 9 months and it was heavenly.

I did a lot of growing up that year. I was only 19 and I hadn't really had a chance to be on my own yet. It was a good year, and by the time Kevin came back the next May, I felt like I was a little wiser.

My mortarboard at graduation only contributed to the feeling of wisdom...

It was so good to have him back, even if it was just for a few weeks as we said goodbye to all our college friends in Pensacola and packed up our belongings to head back to our respective hometowns.

Kevin was scheduled to drive back out to Idaho a few weeks before our wedding day which was rapidly approaching...

To be continued...