The dawn is warm, and nice, being that it’s June it’s not brutally hot yet and I think I went to the gym and worked out, after talking to Aaron about when he was going to be home. “Should be mid afternoon,” he said. “It’s only about 2 hours away from home.” Great! I thought to myself….

I did whatever I could to occupy my morning, and then went over to Aaron’s apartment to wait for him to get home. His room mate, Cheston, wandered in and out, making himself lunch, and asking if I wanted anyway. “No,” said I, over the audible growling of my stomach. “Aaron said he’d be home soon, and I want to show him this church I found, and grab some Panera or something.” So, I sat and talked to Cheston. And sat. And read, then sat some more.

Finally, about an hour and a half after Aaron was supposed to be home, I called him. ” Where are you?” I asked, hungry and a bit perturbed.
“Um, It’s taking longer than I thought. We had to stop and get….gas,” he finished, (lamely in my opinion.)
“Gas?! It took you an hour to get gas?”
“We’re on our way, ok? Gotta go, be there soon!”

Well, at this point I don’t know what his problem is. What do you mean it took you an hour to get gas?! You’ve got to be kidding me. I am now hungry, tired, and bored. I think I may have napped on the couch for a while, and Cheston was probably wondering when I would finally leave.

After about another 45 minutes, at this point about 3 hours late, Aaron, Andy, and Andrew and Andrew’s girlfriend finally come into the house. I am Hungry. I am Pissed. I AM NOT PLEASANT. I suspect someone is not being honest with me. It’s not pretty. I am not proud, but it’s the way it was.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?” I asked calmly, as they all piled smiling in the door. (snort.)

Andrew, a surfer from California out to do the internship and some work with Andy and Aaron, says in his California boy drawl, “Relax Jen, we were just watching a movie!”

This is the point at which I lose all feeling in my hands, and my vision goes completely red. I was so mad. He lied to me!

“Wait just a second!” I get right in Aaron’s face and point my finger so close to his eyes it must have hurt.

“You told me you were driving home, and I have been sitting here, WAITING FOR YOU, and you were at Andrews’, watching A MOVIE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

I am spitting mad now, (I have matured, I swear!) and Andy Golden, being a wise older boy, steps back, and gives my angry some space. Andrew, being younger, and not as wise, steps into the fray, admittedly at Aaron’s defense ”Jen relax, we were just hanging out for a bit, ya know, chillin and stuff.”

I screamed an expletive at Andrew, that in kinder language would have been asking him to go away, and storm into the back of the apartment, leaning my body weight into the door so the slamming of it has more effect on the paper thin walls.

I huffed around the small room I had now contained myself in, furious that he had lied to me, and hungry, and upset that I had just screamed that particular grand daddy of all curse words in a room full of people, but not about to admit any of it. I had wanted to show Aaron the church, and get some lunch, and by now it was almost 4 oclock.

Aaron came in, and said some soothing things. The male equivalent of crawling towards me, neck exposed, hands in the air.
“Babe, I’m sorry, we just went over there real quick and then they started the movie and it just got late. Forgive me?”
Almost crying, I nodded mutely and sat on the bed. I was still pretty mad.
“How bout I pack up my bag, you grab your stuff, and we’ll go to Starbucks?” he suggested.

” I don’t want to go to Starbucks! It’s late and I am hungry and tired! And hungry!” I stamped my foot. Again, I swear I don’t act like this anymore. “I wanted to show you the church I found!

Aaron, still in his work clothes, made soothing noises, grabbed his already packed backpack, which I thought was weird because he always took ten minutes to pick the books he wanted, and he agreed to drive up to the church, which was near the Plaza Starbucks anyway.

I tried to be glad to see him, and my anger turned to sadness at the fact he always had to be traveling, and we’d never get engaged because his job didn’t pay a ton, and we’d never be able to afford a ring and if he loved me he’d have proposed weeks ago. (He’d asked my dad for permission in June, this was over a month later.) Oh the impatient heart in love, it can be kinda rough.

After showing him the Loretto, the church we would end up getting married,  we got back in the car,  and I burst into tears, collapsing on his chest, clutching his shirt by the collar with both hands, and uttered the infamous phrase…

” IF YOU LOVE ME WHY HAVEN’T YOU PROPOSED ALREADY!?”

I sobbed, and he held me and told me he was working hard to save up for the ring, and it was taking longer than he thought. He was so sorry I was sad, and he loved me and it would be soon, he promised. There was much kissing of my forehead and wiping of my tears (and snot, it was the ugly cry.), and he said “Let’s go get some Starbucks.”

Ugh this stupid man and his Starbucks! I started crying again, angry he was so set on Starbucks when I was so clearly in need of a cheeseburger! (I might have had PMS. Yes, PMS is why I was so emotional….Sure…)

I again proclaimed loudly my undying hatred of Starbucks, and my love for solid food, but he was insistent. Which made me crabby, because now I felt like he wasn’t properly honoring my starvation. (Now you people understand why, when I fast, Aaron has to pray for a week before hand, then hide.)

We get to Starbucks, and my boyfriend, who has never ordered anything other then Chai tea, turns to me and says “I have to go to the bathroom. Wait for me before you order?” Now, being made to wait for even a drink for this man, I say “CAN’T I just order for you?” I mean, the man only get’s one drink!

“No, I am not sure what I want.”

Now I am definitely confused. Aaron traipses off into the bathroom, and won’t even let me hold his backpack for him. Jostled by the busy 5oclock on a Friday night Plaza crowd, I sit down and wait. And wait.
“Good grief,” I thought to myself. “Not one of THOSE bathroom stops.” I was just about to stand up and order myself a drink, when he walked back into the cafe from the hallway.

There he stood, in an orange tuxedo shirt, black dress slacks, and black Chuck Taylor tennis shoes. Smiling his sweet smile, he held out his hand. The hand that wasn’t holding a ring box.

I squinted suspiciously and tilted my head. “What are you doing?” I asked. Not quite putting two and two together. “What is that?” I point to the blue velvet ring box.

He sighed and smiled, and looked at me. “What do you think it is?” And he held out his hand again.

Suddenly, it dawned on me, and my heart starting beating double time.

Aaron took my hand, and led me out into the very busy intersection in front of the Plaza Starbucks at 5pm on a Friday night, in summer. Stopping the traffic in every direction, holding my hand, he got down on one knee in the middle of the intersection and said “Jennifer, will you be my wife?”

Opening the box, he held out a white gold 1/2 ct, hand designed, one of a kind diamond ring that SHONE in the bright sun light. I gasped, coaxed out the ring, and said in a very small voice, “YES!”

Then, amidst laughter, applause and whooping from the packed out Starbucks patio and waiting cars, I jumped and grabbed him around his neck, then hopped up and down in the middle of the intersection, kind of doing this weird squeal thing.

A very kindly older man yelled out “Congratulations honey, now get out of the road before you get hit!”

Aaron and I ran back into Starbucks to claim his backpack, which instead of books had been holding his dress clothes, and my engagement ring. He’d been planning it all day.

We went over to the Art museum, where our friend Sarah had set up a picnic in the shade of the arbor, courtesy of Panera Bread. She took some discreet pictures, agreed whilst hugging me to be a bridesmaid and left Aaron and I to stare at each other and call our families.

Of course, staring at my new ring and my new fiancee, I was too excited to eat.

I had to do alot of apologizing for my attitude, but Aaron took it all in stride.

Remember earlier when he was late “watching a movie” ? He was really waiting for Ian Rutherford to get home, because my ring had been mailed from Kentucky to Ian’s house, so I wouldn’t find it accidentally. Ian was late getting home, and Aaron got back early, so they had to kill the time waiting for Ian, and Andrew spilled the beans about HOW they had been killing time. With no context, it sounded horrible, with context, I felt like a moron for yelling.

Also, remember when I had Aaron by the shirt collar, screaming, “If you love me why won’t you propose?” Yeah, my ring was on the seat between us, nestled in his backpack, waiting for his perfect planned moment.

And it WAS perfect. Aaron will now tell the same story, but from his perspective on the day.

After a rather harrowing drive in the snow back to KC from Kentucky I went to pick up Jennifer from the airport and our first date after she had arrived was Gates BBQ. I thought it was great but Jennifer thought it lacked a little something she calls “Romance.”

Anyway, that’s how our relationship started. I knew from day one that she was the one for me.  We spent the next few months getting to know each other. I still marvel at how much we have in common and how different we are. For instance, we like a lot of the same music but there’s a lot I like that she doesn’t and vice versa. I like some rather hard rock and smooth jazz (aka elevator music) and she likes country. She is an organizer and me, well some would use the term “slob” but I prefer “Unsystematic American.” While our list of differences is long we just “get” one another. We have a very similar sense of humor. We can look at something or a situation and both laugh for the same reason without ever talking about it.

So, as far as the time line goes, I left staff and got a job with Andy Golden. We did small repair in malls like Dillard’s, J. C. Penny and the like. I worked to save up for a ring. Jennifer and I talked about getting hitched so it was no secret. I did a ton of research and learned the ins and outs of diamonds. We went to jewelry stores and talked about what she wanted. This one time we went into Tiffany Co. on the Plaza and went in talking as if I were a rich young computer programmer (it was the only occupation we could think of that would be believable and still allow me to wander in wearing jeans and a t-shirt). The salesman gave us his full attention and made sure we walked out with his card. Man, that place is pricey.

To get an affordable ring I ended up going through this couple my parents know in Kentucky. They are jewelers and found me a great ring at a great price. It was exactly what I wanted and it was exactly in my price range. For those of you who know something about diamonds it has good color, good quality, is a little more than half a carat and is a PERFECT cut. It’s great. For all those young men who are thinking about getting engaged my advice to you is: Do your homework!

My folks went and checked out the diamond and ring to make sure it was nice and my sister helped too. The Jeweler offered to engrave it if I wanted but I couldn’t think of anything cool. Aubrey (my sister) came up with having a single line engraved longwise. I thought it was brilliant and so there is a line that starts out pretty deep by the diamond setting and fades out as it goes either way around the ring ans disappears before it meets on the bottom.

Next is our actual engagement. That requires an entirely separate post because it was a big deal and was that cool.

I had gone over my outfit, a pink sweater and black silk skirt, approximately 100 times. The discards of outfits not nice enough were even now laying around my room in discarded heaps of color. I remember taking a long time with my makeup, something I never do, and standing in front of my room mates bathroom mirror, tweaking every piece of hair into just the right spot.

It had been a long week leading up to this. “Fun week” where interns do all kinds of fun stuff. More like “Fun if you like torture” week. The activities were great, don’t get me wrong, it was AGONY watching the clock tick…tick….tick away the seconds until I finally got to go out with Aaron. The excitement was actually making me sweaty and nauseous. Not attractive, so I tried to reign it in a little.

Before I tell you what happened, let me tell you how I’d pictured the moment I was officially graduated, and Aaron and I would sweep off onto our first date.

This is how I pictured it.

I would stand up, with the rest of my fellow interns, as Tracie anounced that we were graduated. I would turn to look at Aaron, our eyes would lock. I would benevolently, but coyly, hold out my hand. He would start towards me, eyes locked, sweeping chairs, people, and all other obstacles out of his way, while the love theme from Top Gun played in the background. Finally stepping close to me, he would smile, and sweep me into his arms, swinging me around in a hug. Maybe I would laugh. Maybe he would. We would be together, and in love, and it would be perfect.

Oh the stark joys of reality. Here is what really happened.

I stood up, heart POUNDING a rhythm hard in my chest, and looked around for Aaron while the applause of happy graduated interns and their parents rang in my ears. Sharon Jones, the sister of Aarons’ best friend, was sitting next to me, rubbing the nail marks out of her arm, where I had been clinging for the last hour.

I turned to find Aaron, eyes going to and fro over the crowd trying to locate him. Easy, because he’s the tallest person there, or one of them. Finally, I spot him, the Top Gun soundtrack starts to play as he turns and looks at me.

Except, instead of smiling, he is kind of looking gut shot. Gut shot, and caught in head lights. His face is completely white, his mouth pursed up, and his arms locked at his sides. Um, he is NOT running towards me like he’s supposed to. I am confused. I tilt my head and smile. My smile hits him like a 350 mag bullet to the forehead. He freezes even tenser than before, and with an almost unnoticeable shake of his head,

HE WALKS AWAY. AS IN THE OPPOSITE WAY. As in, away from me.

What. The. Heck.

I am not amused. In fact, the adrenaline, and having to bring all that Top Gun music to a mental screeching halt, brings a metallic taste into my mouth. This isn’t right! What is his problem!?

As Aaron sped away in the other direction, I grabbed Sharon, fully intending to hold her responsible for Aarons craziness.

“Where is he going?” I hiss to Sharon.
“I have no idea.” Sharon replies, far more used to these small town boys than I. “Maybe he’s nervous.”
“Nervous?” I ask, completely confused. “Why?!”
Sharon at this point would like the circulation back in her arm, and simply shrugs.

Now, I have not waited 5 months for this boy to have him run away. Like any meek, submissive girl, I sit and wait for him to come back.
WRONG!

I went after him, and after a few mildly awkward moments, we are standing together while Sarah snaps a picture of us. In this picture, which I have on my mantel, we look flushed, tired, and slightly sick. But we’re together for the first time.

Aaron packs me into his car, “no radio,” he apologizes, and drives me the ten feet to my apartment so I can change.

Sitting idling in the driveway, he looks over and smiles at me, and for the life of me I can not remember what he said. All I know is, he leaned over, and kissed my cheek and said “I’ll wait out here.”

Never before has such a beautiful sentence been uttered. Finally, the Top Gun music got a chance to play.

I changed, Aaron waited, and we went over to hang out at his apartment. He got on the phone with my dad, while I sat next to him, and asked for permission to date me, and I can only assume my dad said yes.

 I couldn’t get over just being able to sit next to him, it was so weird, and strange and great, all at the same time. I had to get on  a plane at 5am the next morning, and we stayed up all night. We even went to IHOP and got pancakes before the airport. It was -9 that night, and I remember how frigidly cold the car was driving up there.

Standing at the airport, I put on his sweater, (he kindly, in a good boyfriend way, loaned it to me.) and got on the plane to go home for Christmas. I didn’t take the sweater off very much, and we talked pretty much every day. That’s how our dating life began.

It was hilarious when, some time later, I started talking to Jennifer about that evening and I got the “quit pulling my leg” look. It took me a wile to convince her that that night ever took place. And of course we had to watch Napoleon Dynamite again.

We’ll kinda breeze through all the repetitive days in those five months. The short version is the waiting sucked.

You watch a romantic movie about a couple waiting to be together and you go, “Aww, that’s sweet.” It was nothing like that. It was basically a guided tour of Hell. It was the LONGEST six months I have ever experienced.

We broke our rules from time to time but it was maybe three or four times in five months. And when we disobeyed our self-set guidelines it was in a group setting and only for a very short amount of time. We were together one-one one only like once or twice.

For instance, there was the time I was walking back to my apartment. As I was leaving when I got on the path to the apartment I found myself walking about 6 steps behind Jennifer. I was Like “What the heck.” I caught up to her and we talked for the 30 seconds it too us to walk to the spot where we had to part ways. And we walked slow, trust me.

Then after five months we finally got to graduation. I’ll let Jennifer tell that part of the story. When she tells it, it is more embarrassing for me and, thusly, more entertaining for you.

So, one day, after months of stress, bad food, and too much of Teressa’s mom’s chocolate oreo cheesecake, my digestive system took umbrage. Serious umbrage.
One day, I go to the bathroom, and come out completely freaking out. I was, to put this mildly, bleeding. Alot. Hacienda related bleeding. Panicking and on the verge of tears, I find a fellow intern who was a paramedic and, in the biggest attack of embarassment of my LIFE ask him “um, I am bleeding. Alot. SHould I be worried?” He responds, sotto voce, being as kind as he can “did your um…*pause as he looks at the ceiling* cycle start?”
“No!” I cried, seriously, tears are falling down my face and I am shaking.
“Well then, yeah, that’s bad, let’s go to the hospital.”
I grab an intern leader, tell them, still dying of embarassment, what’s going on, and my friend Teressa packs me off to St. Lukes in her car.
Three hours and one very uncomfortable test for internal bleeding later, they figure out yes, I am internally bleeding of some sort.

Which, is bad.

They do another test to determine if I am going to bleed to death, and it stops, so no one panics. (This is about 2 hours after the three hours of waiting, and I am hungry, scared, tired, and cold.) Teressa calmly crochets and watches the doctor out of the corner of her eye. Doctors ask me lots of questions about colon cancer in my family, and schedule me downtown for a trip to a gastroentorologist. Tummy doctor. Yippee.

Flash forward, (and I don’t remember much) I go with Teressa (again, my faithful chauffeur) to the gastro. He tells me I need a colonoscopy, and gives me the schedule of fasting and erm. laxatives. Lots of them.

So, day one, I fast everythign but liquids. Fasting makes me irritable, and tired. Teressa tries to be helpful. Aaron all the while is eyeing me through the crowd, probably wondering what the heck happened.

Day two, the laxatives. I have to drink this bottle of what tastes like flat 7-up. Not so bad. Then I take two pills. Half an hour later, I take two more pills, while teressa mixes a bottle of white powder into 64 ounces of Gatorade. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to drink what’s about 70 oz of liquid in under two hours, but it’s HARD. Especially if the liquid has been made viscous and thick with this weird laxative powder.

The only way I could gag it down was to suck up a huge gulp of it, and then have teressa clap her hands over my nose and mouth while I threw up, so I could keep it down.

My dad is cringing and going “why is she telling this story!?” right now.

Anyway, at 3:30p the medicine took effect, and I went into the bathroom. At 10:00 that night, I hadn’t left. I lost 8 LBS IN ONE NIGHT.

The next day, I went over to the PR before leaving for my appointment. Aaron was walking out, and at this point, we hadn’t spoken a word in a couple of weeks, complete silence. I walked up to him, hallucinating, weak, tired, and hugged him, leaning for just a moment against his chest, and closed my eyes. I was scared, and he felt very solid, warm, and supportive. I don’t remember what he said (hallucinating!) but I remember wanting to stay there all day.

Long story short, I got through my appt. didn’t have cancer, and can barely remember a thing. For that particular procedure, they give you something called waking sedatives. You basically have your brain completely shut off, and are completely normal acting. I remember almost nothing about the rest of the day, except we all hung out that night.

Basically the point of all this was this was the point at which Aaron and decided some communication would be ok. He wanted to know what was going on etc. Plus, it’s gross, but it’s entertaining.

Where to go from here? At this point, we can fast forward through the atrocious months spent waiting, longingly staring at eachother when the other persons back was turned, and trying to focus on God. I wrote Aaron a letter every day (in a journal I bought for the purpose.) It was cathartic. I built up in my head over and over what it would be like when I graduated and we could finally be together…

Then, against all odds, we made it to graduation night.

A lot is coming back as I write. We decided To not speak what so ever for the duration of the internship. We would be as far from each other as possible when we were forced to be in the same place. I would sit on the left in the prayer room she would sit on the right (it eventually became opposite sides of an aisle and a few rows apart). She would sit in the front at classes and I in the back. We would find tables distant from one another at meals, etc.

As I recall we went a week without as much as a “Hi, how are you?” After that week (which was horrible) we decided to be a little more relaxed with our rules. We allowed ourselves the freedom to say “Hi” from time to time.

Hold the phone! I just recalled one of our best/worst pre-dating incidents. However, I will save it for Jennifer to tell. Look for that story next time in: The Grotesque Misadventures of Jennifer’s Colon. (You know the story I mean, dear)

Anyway, it was shortly after we stopped talking that Jennifer had a reoccurring dream. She dreamed of a house that had two stories, a tree on either side of it, crisscrossing lattice under a raised porch and a door that was slightly left of the center of the house. In the dream she knew she was in Kentucky. Every time she had this dream she would be standing in the front and begin to walk around the right side and she would wake up.

Being the artist she is, she drew this house. She knew I was from Kentucky so one day she broke our rules and showed it to me. She explained that she dreamed of this Kentucky home and asked if I recognized it. I believe I dented the table I was sitting at when my jaw dropped. I was looking at a sketch of my house. Two trees, crisscross lattice, off center door. The only difference was that my house has only one story.

I showed Jennifer a picture of the front of my house and Her jaw dented a different table. After I showed Jennifer the picture and we marveled together for a minute she left and Jake Ferrel, who had witnessed the whole thing put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Five more months, buddy” It was at this point that my head hit the table two, maybe three times.

Fast forward- it wasn’t until some months later when we were dating that we (and by “we” I mean Jennifer) made the connection that the second story might not mean “level” but a second tale. In other words, My parents used to live there and we might live there in the future.

Stay tuned, We have covered one month of a 17 month story.

That’s when things got weird. Now, in the internship, guys and girls are heavily heavily heavily encouraged to NOT hang out one on one, or in small groups. This is a good policy aimed at helping people focus on their time with God, and on the intense level of study this particular internship requires. So, what hang out time looks like, is big groups of people wandering around together. Alot like a big school of fish, aimlessly wandering the mall because there is nothing else to do in big groups.

Well, like Aaron already said, it got to the point that we were really only interested in talking to eachother. Everyone seemed so boring! So uninformed! So stupid!

That’s when the problems started. I could tell I was seriously interested in this guy. Being not a moron, I could also tell he was seriously interested in me. Thing bad. Do not want! I came to this internship with a serious drive to focus, and not be distracted. It wasn’t working.

When the internship went to the baseball game, the crap hit the fan. Aaron and I were sitting with all the other interns, talking in groups (right..) and then, his phone rang. He looked upset. He gave his phone a few curt answers and then hung it up, abruptly stood up, and blurted “I have to go.”

“Oh, ok,” I said. “Is everything ok?”

He just stammeringly repeated himself and made a beeline away. My feelings were hurt, as, again, not being a moron, I figured the call had to do with me. And we were just sitting there! I felt as if this was all unjustified. I was mad. I’m not saying it was a mature response, I’m just telling you what happened.

Later on I went and found him about half a stadium away, with the leadership team, watching the game while Sliker and Mosack yelled insults onto the field at some random player for some random reason. One of my com leaders led me away by the elbow, and gave me the “yeah this is all going to have to stop” lecture.

“what? end what? there is nothing going on!”

Nat just looked at me with a knowing smile, and let me angrily vent. She was right.

Later on that evening Aaron and another intern “went to look at the sunset.” Caving under the pressure of my glare, he grudgingly said “you can come too if you want.”

I jumped up and followed the two of them out. Half way out to the railing to watch the sun go down, Aaron turns to me over this other interns head and blurts “we cant’ hang out anymore!”

The intern with us, simultaneously with me, froze solid. This was awkward. Aaron, perhaps realizing there was no where to go but forward pressed on, through the wall of embarassment and over the other girls head “I mean. uh. I just..can’t.”

“Is this really the time you want to talk about this?!” I can not believe this boys manners, and am trying to ignore the red alert alarm going off in my head.

The other intern girl slid away from us, being as low to the ground as possible, Aaron took this exit for permission that he was handling this well, and plunged onward into the abyss of my panic…

“I mean, I really like you, and after the internship I’d love to take you out but… we just can’t hang out at all anymore.”

Turns out the call earlier had been from the internship director, laying the Godly and rule following smack down. Aaron, being obedient, decided that immediately following her instructions would be the best for everyone. Thing bad.

I stopped listening about half way through his sentence. Me?! He liked ME?! HOLY CRAP WHAT?! None of which I said out loud. I only managed to squeak out an “you really want to take me out?”

He looked at me like I’d sprouted horns, turned green and anounced my name was Priscille, Queen of the Jungle.

“Uh. Yeah? Of course?” Like I was mentally impaired for not realizing he’d want to take me out.

“Oh. Um. Ok” I replied. Now the warning alarm was joined by balloons dropping from my mental ceiling, a fan dance, and monkeys juggling winning lottery tickets on unicycles.

And here is the best part.

I said good night and walked away.

I didn’t realize until later that I had completely left him hanging.

Served him right.

I don’t remember much of Jennifer’s introduction but I do remember being impressed with the way she spoke and handled a crowd. It wasn’t until later that I found out that she had been big into theater.

Before going any farther I think I should mention that there was so much that happened in such a short amount of time that timing of many of the events that led to where we are now are kind of mixed up in my memory so I/we might get a few things out of order. If you spot a non-sequitor just go with it.

Anyway, one of the next events I remember is when I walked into the cafeteria one day about two weeks later to fing Jennifer and Bob Powers chatting. I walk up and am met with a rather ferocious “How old are you?!?” accompanied with an irritated stare and protruding pointer. In my confusion I manage to stammer out that I was nearly 21. “Good!” came the forceful reply. She then proceeded, in one of the best rants I had seen to-date, explain how some of the 18 year-old boys would only talk to the blond 18 year-old girls and vice versa and how she, and others, had been rudely ignored simply because they were not 18 and blond, etc, etc, etc. This rant lasted for about five minutes. All the while I just stared and tried not to grin.

Finally, as she finished up, I said “Wow, that was the best rant I’ve ever heard. Well, it’s official, I’m in love.” I was mostly joking but I’m pretty sure that my crush on Jennifer began at that moment. I fought it off, of course, but I think that the seed was planted there and then.

There were a few other significant things that happened between us that took place before we admitted that we had a crush on one another. There was the time that we went to the plaza with a whole bunch of people and were just a few steps ahead of everyone else and for what ever reason that attracted a lot of attention and we had to endure a few mild accusations. On the drive back I remarked on how the area around the Plaza quickly becomes dilapidated as you drive out. Jennifer’s response was “Nice word!” and we gave high fives over whichever poor intern had the misfortune of sitting between us in the back seat. (P.s. a good vocabulary is the way to go when trying to impress an English major)

Another pre-crush moment for me was the time that we rode in the same car to Chipotle where we were meeting the rest of the internship for dinner. When we arrived Jennifer went in to use the bathroom and I looked around to find someone I wanted to talk to. I scanned the entire internship and came to the realization that there wasn’t a single other person I wanted to talk to.

The last Pre-crush moment I can remember off the top of my head (I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two) was the time that a bunch of us were hanging out in the rain. We were all laying on the concrete and chattin. Since I didn’t have any thing to use as a pillow Jennifer shared her backpack with me. We sat there and talked bout everything. We talked about where we came from where we were going in life and we even talked about how many children we would like to have (remember this was totally innocent at the time, neither of us were thing about having these children with the other person). Someone snapped a picture of that evening. I’ll see if I can scan it and post it.

More to come. . .

I was in Western Washington University in Washington State (I am from Seattle) when God decided I was going to come to the One Thing internship in KC. I had just been rejected from a major where I was already excelling in the required classes, solely because the admitting professor didn’t like my essay. I have never gotten below an A on an essay in my entire life. I got a 790/800 verbal score on my SAT’s. I am a good writer, editorial, grammatical and tense mistakes in this post not withstanding. To be rejected based on such a trivial thing, when I was already winning awards for my work in that very major, was devastating. I remember thinking “Hmm…I wonder if I am supposed to be doing something else.” So, when Briana Carr (nee Leonhard) said “You should come with me to K.C., I am doing this 6 month internship.” I immediately said, “No way am I going to Missouri.”

Then her dad called me one morning while I was standing in the kitchen making pancakes. Well, truly her dad called my dad. My dad came up to me in the kitchen where I was standing over the griddle, watching pancakes bubble up and said, “I think we need to go out to the Carr’s house, Timothy has a Word for you.” My response, like any hungry teenager was “Can I at least eat my pancakes first?” I don’t remember if I did, but I do remember going out to the Carr’s, excited that someone had a Word for me.

Timothy ended up prophesying over me for about half an hour, and I believe my father still has a transcript of that prophecy somewhere. I know I kept it on my computer, and used to reread it when I felt like I was going crazy. The time with Timothy, where I sat in a lawnchair in the front yard and cried, ended with his daughter, Briana, smiling sweetly in a very knowing way and printing me off my IHOP Onething Internship application. I was skipping out on my college education to go to Missouri and sit in some room for 6 months and talk to God, who I’d just recently started to believe really existed in the first place and cared about me. Weird.

A few weeks, one plane ride, about 6 bags of luggage later, we arrived in KC to a wall of heat and humidity. July is not a pleasant time to meet Missouri, though it was made much easier by the smiling face of our ride, Josh Hawkins. Josh picked us up, put our luggage in his car, and politely made small talk while we gave exhausted and overheated one word answers. If you see Josh, smile at him, he’s a great guy. What felt like 16 hours earlier, my parting shot out the door to my parents was “I swear, I am not going to marry the first man I see, and I am NOT moving to Missouri.” I was only right about the first part.

A lot of when Briana and I arrived and got settled into our apartments next door to the house of prayer is kind of hazy. I do remember meeting all the leadership at the Club House, and thinking Isaac (Bennet, another guy com leader) was Aaron and vice versa. In true Jennifer style, I immediately forgot everyone’s names, and confused the ones I thought I remembered. That night I stood up for testimonies, and saw this guy sitting near the sound board and thought to myself “I hope he finds this funny,” as I launched into my schpeel about how I got to KC and who I was etc. I think he might have even laughed.

A few weeks (maybe days) later the internship leader Tracey Sliker took Beth (one of my roommates, ) and I out to Mexican food. Tracey asked “So what do you think of the boys?” Knowing of course, that I had already butted heads with a few of them, over the fact that they were annoying, immature, obnoxious and pigheaded. In other words, normal twenty something boys. I asked Tracey “The one that looks like Shaggy, from Scooby Doo, what is his name? He seems really sweet.” Tracey laughed, and told me his name was Aaron. “Hmm… Aaron. Nice name”, I thought to myself. Aaron had taken out a girl that lived below me, because she was homesick and had been having a really hard time. It made her smile a lot more, and feel much better. Her name is Sharon, and Aaron and her older brother had been friends for ages. I didn’t know that, and just thought he was doing something really kind hearted for an intern who was having a hard time. I had no idea how sweet and gentle he really was, but that was a cool insight into his personality.

The time I really recall seeing Aaron for the first time was at the Herrnhut pool. I was sitting on a chair by the pool side, reading a book. (What else do you do when it’s ten million degrees?) A guy was sitting with a bunch of other interns, dangling his very, very white legs in the water. He had a shirt on with his swim trunks, long hair in his eyes, and a lopsided grin in my direction, squinting into the sun to wave hello. I put my book down, stared at him hard and thought (prophetically) to myself “Huh. So THAT is the guy I am going to marry. Weird.”

Here it is. Our second is up and running!

You can expect fewer, longer and more serious posts. Check it out as you will and hopefully it will be thought provoking, stirring or at least interesting. It is more for us to spill out whatever thoughts we have but if you like it too, all the better.

We’ll be kicking things off with our story, from date #1 to our wedding day; and maybe some of the bits that led up to when “we” became “us.” So tune in from time to time and see what you think.

- Aaron & Jennifer