"NEW" Home

So we picked a date....I picked a date. October 20, 2001. My favorite season, my favorite month, my old church. He made sure that I knew it was all about me. This was the man of my dreams. No matter what happened from here on, Josh was my partner.

We decided to move to his grandparents' farm and begin our life together in a small 12 X 60 single wide trailer that had been used as a rental. We worked so hard on getting OUR NEW HOME fixed up to live in. We GUTTED this trailer. New floors, new bathroom, new carpet, new paneling, new everything. It wasn't the three bedroom house I resided in when I met him, but it was OUR home. Day in and day out, we worked at our jobs and came then went to "work on the trailer". Within three to four months, we were sitting in the unfurnished living room, admiring our work and wondering how we had ever accomplished it.

The destruction, the painting, the finishing, the flooring, the HEAT!!! I remember when we finally did get a window unit AC, we took the front off and would put our sodas in there to get cold. And after the work was complete, it still wasn't much, but it was ours.

A lot of memories went into those few months. A lot of sweat and tears, but we did it. Our first BIG hurdle...and we jumped it together.

THE BEGINNING

On March 11, 2001, Josh decided to take me ANYWHERE I wanted to go. It was exactly three months after our first date (back then, we celebrated EVERY month). We started by going to Wally World to take pictures, which I never dreamed would happen with him. Once we finished with what seemed like a MILLION pictures, we viewed them up front and he said, "We'll take the entire package". I looked at him as if he were crazy! There were at least 200 pictures in that package, some of which were HUGE. What was I going to do with that many pictures?

Then we met his cousin, Mandi, who had introduced us, for some wonderful dining at our FAVORITE PLACE, El Azule. I think the guys knew Mandi and me by name at that time because we went at least once a week. When we got there, I saw Josh and Mandi huddled up over by my car and I flipped out. I can't deal with someone saying something that I'm not involved in. I literally got mad! I decided to go ahead and enjoy our lunch since I was with Josh and my friend and the madness went away.

We left and he asked, "What now?" I decided to go to the lake since it was a beautiful day and I really didn't want to just go home. We left Mandi and drove what seemed like forever. We got the the spot that he had picked out on the way down. Of course I was all excited to get out of the car and run down to the lake. The water was down at that time and there was more bank than normal so we walked down the hill. He kept saying, "Slow down, my legs feel like JELLO." I just assumed it was because of the long trip from Pikeville. We got to the lake and he, being the romantic he was, said, "Are you gonna love me forever?" Of course I was like, "Sure am" and went on looking out over the water to try to catch a glimpse of some type of wildlife.

Then he hit one knee. I just knew he had stumbled into the water with his "JELLO"y legs and I grabbed at him. He then produced MY RING.

"WILL YOU MARRY ME?"

"ABSOLUTELY!"