First Anniversary - Reflections
The adventure began two years ago, when we both were hauled to a “mini-shindig”, put on by homeschooling families to let like-minded people meet and enjoy each others’ company. Neither of us were looking for prospective spouses. But by the grace of God, and some meddling by D’s father, we met and hit it off so well that it wasn’t long before we were in a budding friendship. Unfortunately, neither of us had bothered to ask for contact info before parting ways, so I was certain we’d never meet again, or at least it would be a very long time before we saw each other. That deflated the moment.
But, a couple weeks later, he, his sister, and his father came out for a party I was throwing. At the “mini-shindig”, he had been the first person to get me to actually enjoy dancing, and at this party he showed me the ropes of volleyball - and was the first person to get me to do something besides just stand there and look stupid on the court! At this point, there was a lot of teasing going on by my siblings at all the “firsts” he was accomplishing.
Another check-mark came a couple weeks later when we met again at my first ever reenactment. My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t enjoy what he loved so much. But I loved it, and we got to ride horses together and do a lot of talking that Sunday morning. It was fantastic. Also, my dad gave me his number so we could keep track of each other during the weekend, as my family was going everywhere with his since we were brand-new to this whole environment.
Right after that weekend, we began writing letters back and forth. This would continue for the next ten months.
Two more weeks after that reenactment, he came out to our place by himself, and after a couple days of talking and hanging out, we decided it was an official courtship. I spilled the beans to my best friend, who gave a pretty strong hint about it on Facebook when I forgot to tell her to keep it a secret until further notice (whoops...), and so my family found out that way. The table at the Mexican restaurant we ate at that afternoon was full of excitement as he started getting bombarded with texts and calls from his family, and my own family shared their enthusiasm at this pairing.
We saw each other every few weekends, for I wasn’t yet a confident driver (despite having earned my drivers’ license TWO DAYS before we met), and he wasn’t earning enough to afford driving seven hours round trip in a gas-guzzler (still our family truck...) every single weekend.
However, my parents did haul us all down to his family’s place once in a while, which was awesome. I began to call it “home”, for home is where the heart is, and my heart belonged to this fascinating young man.
In August, he brought me and my sister to his place for a week after his usual weekend visit. The plan was that my family would come get us the following weekend and bring us home. It was summer, and neither I nor my sister had school. It helped that we are/were homeschooled.
During that week, we worked on cleaning around the old trailer house, which had a ton of junk on the back porch. That trailer house is still standing, by the way. The plan at that time had been to get it ready to be demolished (it’s full of mold and is falling apart anyway), but here we are, a year and a half later, and it’s still there. Anyway, we loaded up junk in trash bags, hung out at the lake, and also had a water fight to cool off on one afternoon. And our sisters played cards. A lot.
At the end of the week, my dad and brothers came and got us, and my sweetheart and I said our goodbyes. At this point, we were both pretty certain we’d found our matches, but still he wanted to triple-check and wait a little while longer to see if any potential red flags came up. That weekend also marked a practice day for our reenacting battery, and I delved into it for the first time when saddling and climbing aboard one of the team horses. It was also a bit of a scary weekend - my dearest got smacked into a tree trunk by his unruly mount, resulting in scrapes and a headache, and then a leader in the battery took a tumble and broke a few bones from the same devil-horse.
I met his extended family for the first time that Labor Day, and then later on that month participated in a reenactment for the first time. That weekend I rode his horse while he rode a team horse, and his sister and I played guard for the cannon crew and team riders one day and cavalrymen the next. That Sunday, he asked my father for my hand. The answer was yes!
I didn’t see him again until the Thursday before his cousin’s wedding. By talking to my parents, he had planned it for me to come early and spend the whole weekend with him by myself. He was busy anyway, for he was a groomsman at this wedding. So, my mom drove me to a half-way point, where I swapped vehicles to ride with him, his sister, and a cousin I hadn’t previously met.
Looking back, there were so many clues that should’ve pointed out what was going on. But I was so blind, and unwilling to let my hopes get up, that I hardly noticed. But that evening, he took me to our lake. We sat and talked for a little bit before he decided that we should walk a lake-side trail. He was in search of the right spot to pop the question, for “our spot” was occupied by some weekend campers further along the lakeside.
Finally, he found the right spot. We stood and watched some birds swimming on the lake, discussing future plans. And then he turned to me and stated, “I have a question for you.”
Now, normally I wouldn’t have been anywhere near suspicious, but his face was slightly flush and his body was trembling with obvious nervousness. It was a slight tremble - virtually un-noticeable to the eye but quite evident to feel. The next thing I knew, he was bringing his hand out from behind his back as he knelt in front of me. He opened the box in his hand and nervously, eagerly asked, “Will you marry me?”
I stared at the ring. The moment I’d been waiting all too impatiently for had finally arrived. Butterflies overcame my stomach, but my head was clear as I searched and searched for a reason to say no. Why did I do that? you may ask. Well, because if I found one, then it meant I wasn’t ready yet. But I couldn’t find a single reason. It took me a minute or two, which dragged on and on to my waiting beloved. But I finally uttered the word he yearned to hear. “Yes!”
I bent over to hug him, and that’s when he said the three words he’d been keeping to himself for months. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you, too,” I responded. Never had we exchanged those words. Then he stood and put the ring on my finger, and the two of us, both excited and nervous, walked back to his truck, where we told our families of the change in our relationship status.
We picked out our house in December, bought it in January, and moved it at the beginning of February. My bridal showers both happened in February, as did a lot of the demolition in the house, and a reenactment. The rebuilding began in earnest in the second half of the month. My future husband actually did not come up to my family’s place that year at all prior to the wedding! The last time he did so was the opening weekend of December.
My birthday was at the beginning of March, with my bachelorette party happening that weekend. The bachelor party and our long-awaited engagement photo shoot soon followed. And then wedding weekend rolled around.
My beloved and I made our wedding cake that morning, with help from his sister. It was another way that we kept inside our under $2k budget - even with wedding rings and clothes! My extended family, or at least my father’s side, all trekked down for the weekend, so we spent that morning having fun and hanging out when we weren’t busy baking. Finally, time came to prepare for the big event.
I was not nervous. At least, not on the day itself. The evening before, at rehearsal, I was as nervous as could be, for it had finally hit me what I was doing. The magnitude of the decision I had made was finally sinking in.
The beloved sweetheart of mine was waiting for me at the end of the aisle, made of hay bales laid on freshly laid sod, as my father walked me up to him and gave me away. We promised wholeheartedly to do what the vows had proclaimed. And then we were declared husband and wife.
We ate a little, but actually weren’t all that hungry. The only pieces of cake that we ate that afternoon were the ones we ceremonially tried not to shove into each other’s faces. Our photographer (his great-aunt) made us not do that, though I would’ve loved to shove cake in his face - and have him shove it into mine! Instead, we fed each other as neatly as we could, and of course I still ended up having a slightly messy face. But then, I always have been a messy eater!
The afternoon ended with a violent run down a line of people pelting us with birdseed, and extreme disappointment over the car decorations. It was washed by some of the guilty party before we headed out, finally married and off on our own adventure without any kind of chaperone. It was a wonderful feeling when we eventually hit the road. It felt like a burden had been lifted off our backs, and we were free!
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Tomorrow, we are going to drive around the countryside, and I am going to see a part of Texas I haven't been to before - where my beloved grew up. Then we might go to a zoo or do some mini-golf, depending on how much daylight there is left, and there is always the possibility of a movie. Maybe. At the end of the day, we'll find a hotel somewhere and crash for the night, and then go hang out with a couple we know and go to a gun show on Sunday. Yance will be along for all of it, and it'll be interesting to see his reaction. It's our first overnight trip as a family!
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