January 9, 2004

It all started when a friend of mine, Jenny, asked if she could stop by because she wanted me to meet a friend of her boyfriend, Chris. I had just broken up with a boyfriend a month prior and was not interested at that time of meeting someone new. However, my friend insisted on them stopping by late that night. My first impression of Jacob was that he was very good looking with dark hair with light hazel eyes, and I had thought it hard to believe that he would be interested in me. We played card games and talked until real early in the morning and then ending the date with breakfast at Cracker Barrel. All I kept telling my friend was how much I liked him.

Right after meeting him I had to leave town to visit family in Ohio for a week. I called him when I was driving home from the airport the following week and he asked me if I would like to have a late dinner at Chili�s that night. From then on, we spent many of our nights together playing games, watching movies, and eating late night dinners. We became an exclusive couple on January 31, 2004.

Last May, my friend, Vanessa, was finishing up her internship in Disney World when she asked if Jacob and I would like to join her for a cruise to the Bahamas. Of course we said �Yes� and began to save our money. During that 4 day paradise of doing nothing but swimming and eating, I realized that I didn�t want it to stop; I wanted to spend all of my vacations with Jacob. He tends to surprise me in the most unexpected ways. One of the evenings aboard the cruise ship, we were all dressed up from dinner and decided to check out the band in the lounge. Then he leans over and whispers, �Would you like to dance with me?� and I was thinking �well, no one else is dancing�, but he grabbed my hand and took me up on stage and began slow dancing with me. There was a video camera that kept circling around us, you know, the video camera that feeds into all of the TV�s in the cabins. Then other couples came up on stage and began dancing.

After spending a few weekends with his family and a year joining him at church and church functions, I realized that I belonged in his life and that I couldn�t ask for a better boyfriend. I knew that someday I would have the honor of being his wife.