The Story of Tim & I

So I'm jumping on the bandwagon of my other blogger friends, Megan and Inhaling Hope, about telling the story of how we met our husbands. I thought for sure that I wrote a post about this before, but I can't find it anywhere so if I did, well, here it is again!

I graduated high school in June of 2006 and I was very much looking forward to moving out of my parents' house. I was excited to meet new friends, start new classes and start a new chapter in my life, I had no plans of starting any relationships, but of course that's not how things work...
A few weeks into my freshman year, my roommate was on Facebook searching for guys at our college that she found cute/interesting...I don't know what she was looking for, I think she was just browsing. She came across a guy who went to a high school close to our hometown, was a lifeguard (like her) and who she thought was cute. She started messaging him and asked if wanted to hang out sometime. They decided that they wanted to get together, so he, his roommate (Tim), and two of his friends came over to our dorm room to hang out one night. (Looking back, this could have been a really bad/stupid choice for us!) it was a pretty awkward night because we were just a bunch of random college kids all crammed in our tiny dorm room, but it ended up to be kind of fun. I didn't have an immediate attraction to Tim, or any of the guys, but according to Tim, (which I found out years later) he 'called me' when they left our room that night. That weekend we all went out to a party together -my first college frat party- and Tim stuck by my side all night. We had a lot of fun together and it made me feel good that someone showed interest in me, but I didn't think too much of it.

As the weeks went on, Tim and I talked a lot online and got meals together in the dorm cafeterias. I definitely started having more feelings for him than just a friend the more we hung out and kept talking. I think I was more hesitant to start a relationship with Tim than he was with me because I didn't expect to meet someone I really liked less than two months into my college career! I knew that if we were going to be together, I'd have to tell him about my CF because I didn't want him to find out without me telling him. Unfortunately, I was a huge chicken about it and I told him in one of our online conversations. I was afraid of his reaction, so I think this was easier for me. Looking back, I wish I would have just sucked it up, but it worked out okay. He asked me a couple questions about (and of course, I knew he was Googling it) and I tried to ease his mind about it. I told him about my treatments, enzymes and doctors appointments and tried to make it seem not so scary. I'm sure he was freaked out about it, but he fooled me if he was. He asked questions when he wanted to learn more, he encouraged me to do my treatments and keep myself healthy and reminded me to take my enzymes. We were 'officially' together on October 10th, 2006, even after I told him about all of my scary CF issues, he still asked me out. :-)

We spent a lot of time together all school year, and a lot of the time we spent together was going on walks around campus. It was our way of being together without any distractions from other students, homework, or technology. I definitely think we were able to learn so much about each other because of these walks. Going on walks with Tim is still one of my absolute favorite things to do! I was dreading summer break when I had to go back to my parents' house. It was a rough summer for both of us (probably more so me than Tim), but we made it through! We lived about two hours apart, so about every other weekend or so we would go visit each other on the train and we wrote letters to each other all summer. I think after that summer we both knew that we'd get married and always be together. It was an amazing time/growth for our relationship.
That fall we celebrated our one year anniversary. One night we went to a jewelry store to get my necklace chain inspected, and they strongly encouraged me to look at rings while they were looking at my necklace. I felt really uncomfortable because I didn't want to be putting pressure on Tim about getting me a ring (it had only been a year), even though we both knew we'd eventually get married. I looked at the rings casually and tried a couple on per request of the saleslady. I showed her a couple that I really liked, but tried not to make a big deal out of it. Turns out, that weekend, Tim went back and bought my engagement ring! Good thing I picked out a couple I really liked instead of not paying attention!

The next two years we were pretty much inseparable while Tim finished up his college career and I got further into my education classes. In the summer of 2009, we had been together for almost three years, Tim surprised me with a weekend to Wisconsin Dells for what I thought was for my 21st birthday. On Saturday night, 4th of July right after the fireworks, Tim proposed!! It definitely caught me off guard and I was so excited! When my friends and family called me the next day for my birthday, I was able to tell them the amazing news! A little over a year later, October 9th, 2010, one day before our 4 year anniversary, we became Mr. & Mrs. "V-eye-ta-dooder" :-) Now here we are almost a year and a half into our marriage, and I'm happier than I ever thought I'd be! I love my husband so much, he's the best!!!