Our Story

Back in the day...

My Dad is a basketball coach and for as long as I can remember, runs basketball camps for guys and girls over multiple weeks of the summer. The highlight of my childhood summers was not only going to the camps as a camper but helping my mom in the snack stand during the boy's weeks. My sister and I always had fun meeting, or more like just observing, boys our age. I clearly remember noticing a confident brown hair brown eyed boy with spiked hair, dimples, and a cutoff t-shirt. It just so happened that my brother became friends with this mystery crush of mine. I soon found out his name was Weston Martin and before I knew it, we were exchanging compliments via my brother. "Tell Weston I think he's cute" I would demand of Elliot. "He thinks you're cute too" was the message he returned. I lived for the moments he'd leave the gym to get a drink and I could shoot him a shy smile or manage to blurt out a quiet "hi". By the end of the week Weston mustered up the guts to ask me for my AIM screen name (back in the day before 6th graders had cell phones)  and although I don't remember this part of our story, Weston claims seeing me online and most of the time being too nervous to talk to me, with the exception of a few smiley face filled conversations. As cute as the story begins...it wasn't until over 4 years later that we spoke again and our story continued...

The high school years...

Facebook. What's a modern day love story without facebook? I am reluctant to admit, it actually plays a huge part in ours. A few years after the basketball camp encounters, Weston was attending a public school in our area and I was attending a private high school in a different  school district. Our paths would cross when our teams played each other, but the interaction didn't go past seeing each other, him on the court, me in the stands. On a few rare occasions he'd be in his school's fan section and me in mine. I knew some people from his school so making a point to go say hi to them was my best shot at getting a close encounter and possible conversation with my childhood crush. We both were shy so other than a smile or eye contact, our relationship continued from a distance. This is where facebook comes in. My sophomore year and his freshman year I found him on facebook. Suprised at my boldness, I friended him before I could stop myself and waited on the edge of my sisters desk chair for a response. In no time I not only was accepted, but he posted on my wall something along the lines of "WOW. I haven't seen you in forever how have you been?" "At least I know he remembers me!" I thought. After exchanging a few posts he asked if I still played basketball, and responded to my "How have you been?" question with "Even better now that you wrote back"....hmm. I started getting little messages from him after our teams would play each other saying It was nice seeing you tonight, and he even started messaging me about how I should come watch him play football once his season started. My school didn't have a football team but for some reason I was very into this offer. The public school I attended until middle school would play his team, giving me the perfect opportunity to hang out with old friend and be an eager spectator for that cute quarterback on the other team. My senior year rolled around and his junior year and suddenly, all of our progress seemed to fall apart. He broke his hand preventing me from being able to watch him play (although he still argues to this day I could have come to a game see him), and I ended up dating other people. Don't worry, there is still another part to our story that didn't come around until over a year later...

The college years....

Fast forward a little over a year from the fall of my senior year and the fall of his junior year....I am enjoying my first college spring break in Florida with my best girl friends a few months after swearing off boys altogether and declaring myself as an "independent woman". He graduated in January from high school and spent two weeks in Hawaii surfing and building a house for YWAM, and is now living in Florida with his grandparents for a month. Yes we are both in Florida, but Florida is a huge state right?  We haven't communicated in over a year, yet little do we know, our worlds are finally about to collide for good. I fly home and get back to college. I remember exactly where I was in my freshman dorm room when I read a very out of the blue facebook message from that guy I had a crush on at basketball camp when I was little. It was nothing more than a "Hey how have you been, its been awhile" kind of thing, but my heart was racing. Now that I know his side of the story I can tell you he flew home from Florida on the exact same day and was sitting in the airport when he saw a group of college kids in the food court. Somehow I popped into his mind and he had an urge to catch up. This is where we can both look back and see God's timing in our story. We were no more than 5 minutes apart in florida probably crossing paths daily without even knowing it. Got back on the same day, and started catching up through messages that day thanks to the nudging of what I believe was the Holy Spirit that day in the airport. Its amazing to look back and see how God placed us in each other's lives at the perfect time. Its almost as if we were in the back of each other's minds all long, but we were both different people in high school so I believe it  was really a blessing that things came together when they did. We both had grown alot and made many positive changes in the weeks prior to our Florida trips, and were both in great places individually. For the next few days after that first message we laugh at how we were glued to our computers, shocked by how much we had in common and catching up on pretty much our entire lives. By this time it was close to the end of my freshman year and with my sister getting married at the end of June I had to come home multiple weekends for the pre-wedding festivities. The first weekend in April was her surprise shower. All I could seem to do at school was gush about this "too good to be true" guy  who was an athlete, family man, undeniably attractive (lets me honest, I knew that much since 6th grade) and all around what I was looking for...but wait...I wasn't looking, right?. I had to give him a chance but was still very cautious about this whole relationship thing. Well, after he asked if I'd be interested in going out when I was home next , I could hardly contain my excitement/nerves. I had never even TALKED to this guy in person, let alone sit across from him at a table and carry a conversation. I rushed home that Friday night, he pulled into my driveway in his black Audi and stepped out of the car and I remember thinking "Wow, he's even more attractive in real life!" :)  He came inside and talked to my parents, opened my door, and was cool calm and collected. Once I was siting in his passenger seat I was completely at ease and from then on the night was a blur of perfection. We had a simple date of dinner at Ruby Tuesdays and bowling. After 2 hours of talking at the restaurant and 4 games of bowling, it as getting late and he snuck me back into my house so I could surprise my sister the next morning at her shower. I walked into my house feeling like a giddy little girl, my hesitations out the window. This boy was like no one I had ever met. A true gentleman, polite, confident (but not cocky), funny, composed, classy with country roots, and most importantly Godly. Well folks, that was April 4th, 2009 and the rest is history. We got engaged on August 1, 2011 over two years later, which is a whole other story...