Our Story - Part 2... (From Jenn's Point of View)

So where did I leave off?... Oh, the beginning of the summer. That's right.

So school was over. We were gone off our separate ways, unsure of how often we would see each other. He was working full time and I was working full time. We both had busy schedules and such so there was no knowing how much we would see each other over the summer. I was worried I'd only get to see him once or twice. God knew my worries during this time. Fortunately we were blessed and ended up seeing each other quite often during the summer, pretty much every weekend (if not that, then every other weekend). He'd come to my house, I'd go to his. The summer was great as we got to know each other better, but also got to know each other's families better too.

I went down to his house the weekend of June 9th-11th. It was his birthday so I wanted to be there for it. Plus we were having a party for him. He told me he had a surprise for me when I got there. He gave it to me and here it was a promise ring. I was ecstatic. Josh was promising that one day he would marry me! (Some of you may be thinking - my this is kind of early to get a promise ring, you've only been dating for four months and have only known each other five. But you have to understand, Josh and I started talking about marrying each other about a month after we started dating. Many people probably thought that we were rushing things and we were crazy, but we somehow just knew that we were meant to be together and that God was going to allow us to spend the rest of our lives together.) Anyways, back to the story. So he gave me a beautiful promise ring that weekend and then we spent the rest of the weekend celebrating his birthday with his family and friends. I remember going home and showing my parents the ring Josh had given to me. I especially remember my dad's reaction. I showed it to him and his first question, with tears in his eyes, was "Do you love him?". Of course I said yes. His second question was "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with him? Does he treat you good?". I answered yes to both. He then hugged me and told me he was happy for me. I'll never forget that.

So the summer went on. We had many random dates over the summer as we visited each other. One date I remember in particular was up at my house. We were bored and trying to figure out something to do. So we randomly decided to go to a local state park. When we got to the park we walked around a bit and then decided to go on the paddleboats on the lake. Josh quickly learned my fear of small boats in big bodies of water. I'm petrified of falling out and drowning (even though I can swim). It was a lot of fun though, on the paddle boats in the middle of the lake, just talking and spending time together.

So the summer flew by and our love for each other continued to grow. Before we knew it, it was August and I was back in school and he was at home working. This way we were only about 40 minutes from each other and we got to see each other more often.

In September, Josh's cousin got married. We went to her wedding together. Throughout the day of the wedding, Josh and I discussed some ideas for our wedding (even though we weren't even engaged yet). We agreed on a lot of things about it, which was good. At the reception they had the normal bouquet toss. Guess who caught the bouquet?!? That would be me. We all knew what that meant...

Together at his cousin's reception

-Jenn