The Adventures of Cris and Paul: 2016

My favorite photo of us

Since it's our 10 year wedding anniversary, I'm more sappy and mushy than usual. I got to thinking about how I LOVE hearing the 'how we met' or 'how we fell in love' stories from friends and family...and honestly, I even love hearing these stories from strangers. It's just so personal and sweet to hear these precious stories from people.

So, in case you have always wondered about me and My Paul and how we met and fell in love.

Here's our Love Story:

We met in high school. We were in the same grade.

Freshman Year of High School: I noticed Paul and his friends right away. They seemed very awkward and shy, and I have a soft spot in my heart for the awkwards. So I made sure to say 'hi' to Paul and his friends every day.

Sophomore Year of High School: Our friend groups merged into one. Paul and I had a blast hanging out in the courtyard and having contests to see how many sour warheads we could fit in our mouth at one time. There was lots of disgusting candy drool everywhere. This became a regular occurring contest. Sometime in the winter/spring, our school does a Carnation sale, where you can buy flowers for your friends (red = I love you, pink = I like you, yellow = admirer, white = friends). Paul bought me a pink carnation. It was the first flower I ever received from a boy. People teased us, and I told the world that we were just friends. The rest of the year was a little more awkward.

Junior Year: I was dating someone else during that time, so I didn't see Paul very much. However, at the end of the year, our friends and both of us went to Cedar Point. I'm a coward, so I didn't want to do more than just a few tamer rides. Paul hung out with me on most of those tame rides, even though he likes roller coasters. I thought it was very sweet.

Senior Year:

At the end of Junior year, our school did some random romantic compatibility test thing. I assume it was how they got grant money or something. Anyway, we started Senior year and everyone was given their individual results about who in the school they were compatible with. Mine was a list of 10 guys, mostly younger grade guys I had never heard of, and number 1 on my list...was Paul. I remember my heart beating weird. I remember panicking and wondering if I was on Paul's list. Would this ruin our friendship? Would people tease us? I left my class and wandered slowly to find Paul. It turns out, he was trying to find me. I will never forget the place in school where we awkwardly met up to talk about this dumb compatibility test. It is a special spot in a random hallway that will always be special to me. We laughed it off and mutually decided not to tell anyone about it.

For the rest of our Senior year, we hung out together almost every morning before school started. Sometimes with other people, sometimes just the two of us. It was the only part of the day I ever enjoyed. I still didn't think of Paul as anything other than a cool friend.

I asked him to our prom, and he said no, because he had another date. I was more bummed than I thought I would be.

Senior Prom: Not dates, but still awesome friends

The rest of the year went by, and I was excited about going to college. My goal was to start over with a fresh slate in college and never look back. For this reason, I never asked Paul what college he was going to, because I didn't want to know that about anyone. Still, graduation was coming up and I realized that I would miss Paul as a friend.

Paul came to my graduation open house, which was a Hawaiian themed party, and he actually dressed up in a Hawaiian shirt and hula skirt, even though no one else came dressed up besides my family. I thought he was the coolest friend ever.

At graduation, somehow, Paul and I stood next to each other in almost every single picture with all of our friends. At our school over-night party after graduation, I don't know how it happened, but Paul and I ended up hanging out almost exclusively for the entire night. It was so much fun. At the end of the night, I awkwardly blurted out that he should call me that summer to 'hang out if he wanted'.

High School Graduation!

I didn't think I would hear from him, but sometime in July, Paul called me on the phone. He asked if I wanted to play tennis with him. I had never played tennis before, but I said yes. I got there and realized that he had invited all of the high school gang to play tennis [side note: Paul later told me that he originally just asked me, but then got nervous, and quickly called others to join.]. Even though I was determined to 'start over' in college, at this friend hangout, I asked Paul what college he was going to. I found out he was going to GVSU, just like me. He also told me that he joined a non-drinking program that let him move in a week earlier than everyone else. I was in the same program! He didn't remember what dorm he was going to be in, but I'm a planner person, so I knew my dorm address. I wrote it down and told him that he should 'come visit' if he wanted.

Even though I was now weirdly excited that Paul was going to the same college as me and moving in on the same day, I still thought that I would never see him again. GVSU is pretty big, and I was still determined to start a fresh new life.

College Years

Day One of Freshman year: My parents helped me move into my dorm, and afterward, I walked them back to their car in the parking lot. They teased me about how I was probably going to fall in love right away and get married before I graduate from college. I will never forget this: I put my hand on my hip and declared to them: "I'm not even THINKING about love and marriage until I am in my 30s! I am here for school!" I then turned around and walked back to my dorm...where my new roomie told me that someone named Paul had stopped by to see me and left his dorm address for me. My heart did a bajillion somersaults. I was super nervous. I started walking to his dorm. Along the way, I had tons of thoughts running through my head, it was seriously chaos up there.

Once again, just like that random hallway in high school, I will never forget that random sidewalk where me and Paul met up. He was walking back to my dorm, with a phone number this time. I was walking to his dorm. We met in the middle. I seriously could pick out that slab of concrete if we visited our old college again. It was a weird moment, where I noticed nothing else but me and him. A perfect and beautiful moment.

That day and night, we hung out together, just the two of us... until 4am. I had never stayed up that late before. We talked and talked and talked about everything. It was the most amazing conversation ever. I had never hung out with Paul alone like this before; even in the school hallways it was a place loaded with people we knew. This was just the two of us, on a bench outside. When I crawled into bed at 4am, I said something along the lines of 'Crap' but a bit more crass. My declaration to my parents about not falling in love until I was in my 30s had been dashed within ONE HOUR.

Dating usually involved fishing

I knew right away that I was falling in love with Paul. Within 2 weeks, we were dating. By 2 months, we were talking about marriage. On our 1 year dating anniversary, we went ring shopping [sidenote; we ultimately decided that rings weren't our thing]. We married before college was done. I would have married him after 6 months of dating. For real.

When Paul and I talk about our Love Story, it always clear that it is a story based on God. It fascinates me how there were so many little things that could have possibly changed everything. What if I remained stubborn and didn't boldly (and so unlike me) give him my dorm address? What if Paul had remained shy and didn't boldly (and unlike him) go find my dorm room? We are so thankful to God for how he let us find each other. What an incredible blessing.

I found a man who loves me for who I am. I am a non-makeup wearing tomboy who prefers football and fishing to flowers and romance. I am a strong feminist with bold beliefs about Biblical equality. I am strongly emotional and I hate traditions (hello blue wedding dress). My whole life, I craved a relationship with a man that was based on: God, Friendship, Humor/Fun, and Equality. I am beyond grateful that God led me to find my True Love so quickly, and in HIS time, and not my own.

I'll finish up here with one more story. When I was a child, I was homeschooled. One day, my mom dropped me off to spend time with my grandma. She lived on Homerich Ave in Byron Center, Michigan. On that day, for some reason, my grandma wanted to visit a nearby friend who lived a few miles down the same street. We entered the home, and my grandma's friend told me that I should go play by their backyard pond. The pond had lots of fish, she said, and when normal school got out, the neighbors' kids often played/fished in their pond. My grandma's friend told me there was a girl and a boy around my age, and that the boy 'fished in the pond all the time'. I sat by the pond for a few hours and I just enjoyed the sights. What a lovely spot. I was a serious-type of girl, and I daydreamed that the boy and girl wound come home and play with me by this awesome pond, and we would all be friends. Perhaps, I daydreamed, the boy and I would fall in love and I would never have to leave this pond again. Silly child dreams. Sadly, I never met that boy and girl that day. I forgot all about that pond and my daydreams, until I randomly mentioned to my grandma that 'my boyfriend Paul and his folks live on Homerich Ave., just like you used to!' After some investigation, my grandma reminded me that I had been at his neighbors house as a child. The very pond that me and Paul had had many of our dates going fishing and talking...Yep, Paul was the little boy that I daydreamed about for that one random childhood day. What a reminder that the world can be a very small place. It also reminds me that perhaps God has a sense of humor. :)

God Bless,
~Cris

To finish, here are a few more of my favorite photos: