Our Story
Today I'd like to write about the love story I get to share in with my awesome husband! I'll write about how we met, got to know each other and then later (spoiler alert) how we got married.
September 2005
I was 11 years old. I was in sixth grade and had just moved to Colorado with my family. I was also home-schooled. As anyone who's been home-schooled knows, the top question, the top concern, for anyone who learns that I've been home-schooled is - how did you make any friends? People will look at me incredulously and wonder - how is this person functional and healthy and able to socialize??
Well, I'll tell you, my parents were really intentional about making sure that even though their children were home-schooled that we would have a healthy social life. To this end, my parents enrolled me in a home school co-op. Which is basically just a bunch of home-schooled kids getting together once a week for a day of "real school". We wore uniforms and had regular classes with other students, lunch in a cafeteria, and recess just like everybody else - only - 1 day a week instead of 5.
My husband and I met on the first day that I attended this home-school co-op. He was 12 and in 7th grade. An older man. He was super shy, so we didn't actually meet that day. We didn't speak to one another. But we noticed each other.
Later that day, I remember that I wrote in my diary about a "cute boy at school". Little did I know that I'd be marrying that "cute boy" 8 years later.
Jonathan and I went to the same co-op for a few years, but my family also started attending the same church as his family shortly after moving to CO. So we grew up going to the same church, and a few years after we met (officially) and became friends, we started a courtship. Jonathan was always really clear - he didn't want to be just friends with me. He pursued me openly and intentionally pretty much from the beginning. This is something I deeply admire about my man. He wasn't afraid to pursue me. He may be a naturally shy person, but he's strong and intentional and forthright.
Now, I called our relationship a "courtship" and I want to explain why. It's not just an archaic, christian-y, old fashioned, and out dated term for me. It really is the best way I can describe what our relationship was. We didn't date. But we were exclusively boyfriend/girlfriend. We spent a lot of time with each other's families - for years, on Sundays Jonathan would come over to my house and watch football with my family. I spent time with his family at his house, and we'd go out with other friends. We weren't allowed to be totally alone for the first several years of our relationship. Not because our parents believed we were lust-crazed mongrels, but for accountability and to protect our innocence at a young age. I was 14 and Jonathan was 15 when we started our relationship.
Believe what you will about dating, relationships, and young love but this was our parents style. And I'm thankful for it. It laid the foundation for a life long, healthy, and beautiful love story. So, thanks to all the mom's and dad's involved in the making of Allie & Jonathan's beautiful love story.
We decided really early on that we didn't want our relationship to be heading nowhere. We didn't even want our relationship headed to an undetermined, unspoken end. We wanted to pursue each other with the intention of getting married. We both agreed that the "dating to date" concept just wasn't our style. I will say though, that even though we were dating with the end goal of marriage, we never got too crazy about planning our future until several years into the relationship. And we waited a good long while to say "I love you" to each other. We agreed on these things because we realized how young we were and how much life could change us between then and when we might get married. We wanted to make sure we guarded our hearts properly so that if/when the time came we'd have a real gift to give one another.
Jonathan told me he loved me for the first time on my 17th birthday. By this time we were about 2 years into our relationship. The following summer after I turned 17, my dad got stationed in South Korea with the Army. So my family and I got packed up and shipped out to South Korea. I lived there for a year. My senior year of high school and Jonathan's freshman year of college.
We celebrated our 3 year anniversary while I was in Korea. I'll just say this, long distance is tough. But I'm proud to say that we made it through the year with our relationship not only intact but stronger. We actually thrived over that year, grew a ton (together and individually), and learned a lot.
We decide to wait until after Jonathan graduates with his bachelor's to tie the knot. So we end up having an 8 month long engagement. Over the course of those 8 months, I turn 20, Jonathan turns 21 and he graduates from college. This is the period of time when we really begin to weave our lives together and let ourselves dream about the future.
May 16th, 2014 we get married, in the rain (yes it rained on us and our guests) in front of God and our family and friends. It's a beautiful day that goes (almost) exactly as planned. It's 5 1/2 years after we began our relationship and a huge reward for being patient and building a lasting foundation while we were young(er).
We spent our honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and we're still going strong almost 4 years later. We've been together now nearly 10 years. A decade of our lives, and almost half of our lives. And all I can talk about is how incredibly thankful I am to be a part of this story. I'm grateful that we chose each other and that we were patient and smart about our relationship early on. I hit the jackpot with this guy, and it's a privilege to be married to him. He is the freakin' best gift I've ever been given and I learn more and more from him every day. We have a lot of the story left yet to live, but this is the beginning. And what a beginning it's been!
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