A group of bloggers is hosting a series of link-ups on love and marriage, and the current topic is "In the Beginning". You can read some of the other posts here and here. A lot of you that read my blog were part of the early days of our relationship. But there are also some more recent friends who might not know our story, so I have decided to go ahead and post it here!
In 2000 I was starting my third year of undergrad at University of Florida. I had gotten really involved in my church and spent a lot of time with friends from the church/student center. In the fall Stewart started attending and joined the choir. He is from the same small town as several of my friends, so he just naturally started hanging out with us. I thought he was cute and nice, but he was also really quiet and didn't really seem to be interested in me so I didn't think much of it. Plus I knew that there were a few other girls that liked him, and I was never the one to get the guy. So we just spent the fall getting to know each other as friends.
One funny story when I look back on those few months....my mom came up to visit for homecoming, and she came to Gator Growl (the big homecoming pep rally) with me and my friends. Well apparently Stewart made some sort of impression on her, because she definitely made a few comments about this sweet boy with the "charming" southern accent. And perhaps she could recognize something I hadn't even realized yet, because after Growl she decided that she wanted a picture of us. I still remember being embarrassed but also secretly thrilled (he put his arm around me, after all!) Here it is, the first picture ever taken of us. :-) Isn't he so cute??

Towards the end of that semester, I started to admit to myself that I might like him as a bit more than a friend. I remember going home over Christmas break and really missing him! When we came back from break, we slowly started hanging out a little bit more on our own. We would go out with a group of friends, and then end up talking in the parking lot for an hour after everyone had gone home. We were in that "whatever" phase....we were clearly interested in each other but were officially still just friends (and he wouldn't make a move!)
In February two of my best friends were having a 21st birthday party in Tallahassee. I wasn't about to miss it, but I also had to be at church early the next morning because we were having a pancake breakfast fundraiser for Dance Marathon. I knew I'd have to drive back basically in the middle of the night, so I asked Stewart to go with me so I wouldn't "have to drive back alone." Dang, I was bold! And I can't believe he agreed to come! We did indeed leave the party somewhere around 1am I think, he drove and I promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, I just decided to throw caution to the wind and ask him how he felt about me. Basically he admitted that he liked me but was hesitant to start a relationship since he was going to be leaving at the end of that semester to do a teaching internship in his hometown. So we kind of left things unresolved, but we did hold hands in the car. :-)
For the next few weeks we basically were dating without calling it dating. I had already planned to spend my spring break in various places in the Panhandle (Destin, Panama City, etc.) including a stop in Stewart's hometown. Hmmm, how convenient. I saw him several times over the break, and when we got back we finally had the official "we are together" talk. Unfortunately summer was fast approaching which meant he would be leaving Gainesville. And thus began the long period of long-distance dating. He returned home and did his teaching internship while I finished up my last semester of classes. We both graduated in December, but I stayed and worked through the spring. I was determined to get my full four years of college life! Stewart was substitute teaching at home and eventually would accept a teaching position. In the meantime, I made the (tough) decision to attend grad school in Nashville. So our 2 1/2 hour distance became a 7 hour distance. Man, we put some miles on our cars. I hated not being with Stewart, but I was also loving Nashville. So when I graduated in 2004, I decided to stay and work at Vanderbilt where I had gotten my degree. At that point Stewart wasn't sure about teaching anymore, so he decided to come up to Nashville and look into his options for a different career path. The problem was that he wasn't really sure what he was looking for, which led to a lot of frustration and doubt on both of our parts. After a couple months, he made the decision that he wanted to go back to school to become a pharmacist. This also would involve getting some prerequisites, and it made most sense for him to take the classes at the community college he had attended right after high school. So we were back to long distance. Again. It was a hard time, because we wanted to be together but our lives were just not lining up. One of my colleagues was from Panama City and told me that she thought the job market for speech pathologists was really good there. I decided to look into it and before long I had a job offer. It was a hard decision because I really loved my job and life in Nashville, and there are still times when I really miss living there. But if we were going to be together, we were going to have to live in the same place! So I moved down to Stewart's little hometown in the summer of 2005. And since there weren't apartments or anything there, I moved in with his grandmother. Talk about a hard transition! I love Granda SO much and now I can look back and be thankful for the time we spent together that year. But in the beginning it was rough. I cried a lot. By this point we knew we were going to get married, so I was just kind of waiting for a ring! Right at the end of the summer, Stewart surprised me with a beautiful and personal proposal and of course I said yes. We spent the next year planning the wedding, with him taking classes and me commuting an hour each way to work in Panama City.
I honestly loved planning our wedding. It was stressful, but I would totally do it all over again! The day was glorious....I had the time of my life. I married my best friend and partied with all my loved ones. Seriously, I wish we could do it once a year!


We had a busy start to our marriage, as do most couples. Stewart attended and graduated pharmacy school; I had three different jobs (four if you count my current job as mom); we moved three times (four if you count the move within the same apartment complex); had Cooper; bought a house; had Georgia. In June we will celebrate our seven year anniversary....it really is amazing how it has flown by! I am so thankful that God blessed me with Stewart as my partner in this crazy and wonderful life!