The beginning of a great thing...

My goal for this blog is to document the planning and creating process of the next 5 months. Mostly for Brett and myself, I think it will be neat to look back through a kind of journal of this whirlwind time, but also for my family and friends that want to follow along and share in this exciting time! I believe we are planning a wedding but I also believe we are creating SO much more then that, this is a time filled with love excitement creativity fun love and family, and I know that there will be memories made that we will never forget!

So I have been waiting oh so hard to wait to start this blog until I received the edited proposal pictures but the anticipation is making me crazy :) So I thought I'd start it early and give a little history of our relationship...

Our road to engagement has not necessarily been a long one, but it has been absolutely meaningful. I really believe that I have found my best friend and partner in life with Brett. We met through Valley Church's college and young adult Bible study in August of 2010, and sparks flew pretty quickly.

To be honest when I met Brett, I brushed him off pretty quickly, he seemed nice enough and was certainly cute, but I assumed he was younger then me and I told myself dating wasn't what I needed my focus on so I didn't think twice about him. A week or two later he friend requested me on facebook so I did what I do best on facebook, I snooped. Well first thing first I checked his info section and he was in fact not younger then me but 2 years older then me, hm interesting. Scrolling down the info section and things stood out to me. He was strong in proclaiming his faith, seemed to have a good sense of humor, looked like he had a solid job, and some education....not too shabby. Then I made my way to the pictures. Well. Cute was an understatement, he was seriously good looking. There were lots of fun pictures with his family, he seemed to always be doing adventerous things outside, and all of this led to the beginning of a serious crush.

I still find it hilarious that I learned all of this via facebook after having had a one line conversation with him two weeks prior...and the majority of findings were true.

I spent some time thinking about having a crush and considering if I wanted to re-consider dating :) After thinking and praying I decided that I believed I was ready to open myself up to that possibility, but I also had a very strong sense that if we dated it was going to be serious.

Well facebook flirting for a few weeks led to another face to face at Real Life where I entertained a real conversation with him. We talked and laughed for a while between ourselves and a group of friends. Next thing I knew I was planning on going rock climbing with a group the following Friday with Brett and some friends that were there, including Michael. Not too long after Michael realized Friday wouldn't work and the group resolved to meet up another Friday. The Sunday night Bible study was wrapping up and before I left Brett asked if I would still be interested in climbing Friday night, because he still wanted to go. So we made plans to drive up together and meet up with the rest of the group that would be going.

Friday came and a long hot drive through traffic ended up being great. We talked and laughed the two of us, with Dodger in the back of clunky all the way there. We had some mutual friends and similar life experiences that allowed conversation to flow easily and enjoyably. The rest of the night was great we climbing with a group of great people and went out to dinner after, and by the time he dropped me off in Dixon, we had plans to hang out again on Monday.

Over the next few weeks we had so much fun hanging out, meeting friends, talking until all hours of the night, and really seeing that there was more then just an awesome friendship there. We have both agreed time and time again, that it has been so easy and fun from the beginning. I met his sister three weeks after seeing each other and a week later I met his parents. And the same night after meeting his parents our dating became "official" :) We have had so much fun since then. We have enjoyed adventures, family, life, stress, joy, and faith together. And so far it has been the greatest time. I have been blessed by Brett's family and the love they have for each other. And I have loved becoming closer with his family. Even before a proposal, they made me feel like part of the family, and I can't wait to legally become part of it.

I am still in awe of the beauty of our relationship, and am so thankful for the blessing he has been in my life the past nine months. I have been at ease with him since day one and I trust him with my life. There is a likeness between us that makes it feel like we have known each other our entire lives.

Not to say our relationship has been perfect, we have experienced growing pains of growing together, and we know that this is just the beginning. But we also know that the love we have is worth preserving through refining times in the future.

I can't wait to share the proposal story and pictures with everyone soon!! And I promise to not type so much, well at least I promise to try :)