Birthday Countdown: Day Thirteen

The Duke Family asked: "How did you and Corey meet, and how long were you together before you got engaged, married, and had your first precious baby?

We got this Willow Tree figurine for a wedding gift. I love it!

Well, I am too lazy to find old pictures to scan right now, but I promise I will do that at some point.

Corey and I met at church. We both knew "of" each other before we met. His parents and their family grew up with my parents and our family. But, we had never met. (well, Corey says he remembers meeting me at a grocery store one time with his grandmother but I don't remember that at all)

When we DID finally meet, we actually sat down together and mutually agreed that although everyone was trying to play matchmaker we were totally uninterested. That was sometime in January or February of 1999.

In May of 1999 we went on our "first" first date. We saw The Mummy. It was great. BUT, I had to shed the small town for a while and was determined to do so on my own, so I went on to UGA for a semester in the fall of 1999. In December, when I came home for Christmas break, we hung out some more at church and I really really knew that I could not leave again. SO, I un-enrolled myself, came home, and we had our "second" first date on or around December 19th or so. It was to see "Grease on Ice" at the Forum in Rome! ha ha!!!

Anyway, in February of 2000 we were walking around the mall one Sunday afternoon near Valentine's Day and the jewelry store was having a sale on engagement rings. I suggested that we should go ahead and get one since they were on sale and they had the exact one that I wanted. We went in and bought a ring less than two months after we started officially dating. Later that spring we got engaged. I won't tell that story because it is another question....

We were engaged for over a year. We were planning a September 2001 wedding but moved it up. I was just ready to be married. AND, after attending Andy and Bethany's huge wedding where I about hyperventilated just sitting on a pew, I decided I didn't want the big wedding thing anyway and we put together our wedding in about a week's time. A friend made my dress, my PawPaw did the ceremony, and we just went up to the church (since we had a key), rearranged the lilies in the front and had ourselves a short, sweet, CHEAP wedding! We had a reception lunch at Provino's afterward and spent a lovely one nighthoneymoon in historic Chattanooga! ha ha!

So...there you go. The rest is history. I enrolled in Shorter College and in March of 02 we found out we were going to be blessed with our beautiful daughter, Katie, in October. Noah followed about 20 months later in June of 04.

I absolutely would not change anything EXCEPT.......

If we had known that $ would have always been tight anyway...we would have taken a week and gone to...GUESS WHERE for our honeymoon?!?! ha ha. It's okay. Actually, we are finally planning that DISNEY honeymoon for this December.....TEN YEARS after our "second" first date.

I have so enjoyed being married. It was truly a perfect fit for us. We are so good together. I figure in another 10 years he will be just about perfect (with my training of course!) ha ha!

Tomorrow I will answer Jon's question: "What do you want to do in the next 28 years that you didn't do in your previous 28?