Engagement

On February 18, 2006 I went from having a "girlfriend" to a "fiancé" and we are planning on getting married on July 1, 2006. It's not far away, but I'm thrilled to begin the journey of marriage with my wonderful girl, Stephenie Nicole Morrison. My good friend Travis Cardwell (who regularly updates his blog for those who want a steady diet of good blogs) has been on me for not blogging in months, so hopefully this will begin a stream of consistent blogs and keep him quiet for a few days. Anyhow, for those interested here's the story how we met:

Back in April of 2003, I was sitting in my "Romans" class next to Amanda "Matchmaker" Jones, formerly known as Amanda Yates (no relation to Andrea), who had just gotten married herself a month earlier. Either she felt like playing the role of Cupid or she just saw a wonderful hunk who she thought would match up with her best friend Stephenie. However it worked out, she asked me if I would be interested in meeting her best friend Stephenie. Like a typical guy, my mind began thinking, "Oh great, this girl thinks I'm nice and she wants to set me up with her best friend who is probably "sweet", but there may be a reason why she is single." I hesitated and thought "probably not." I found out later that Stephenie was not too keen on the idea of a "blind-date" earlier. After a little persuasion from Amanda to both Stephenie and I, we all agreed on a group date, so Amanda and her husband Nick and Stephenie met me the following Saturday(4/26) at Cafe Adobe.
We agreed to meet in front of the restaraunt and as the three of them walked up my eyes were immediately focused on Stephenie. Ok, I give it to her. Amanda was right. Stephenie WAS cute. I immediately fell in love with her smile and as we ate dinner I continued to like who this girl was more and more. Dinner was all that we had planned, but appartently Stephenie was digging me, too. She suggested that we play a little minature golf. Now I didn't find this out until about a year later, but it's worth noting. Since Amanda and Nick were newlyweds, the budget was a little tight. Minature golf wasn't part of their budget, so Stephenie secretly told them SHE would pay for their golf, since they were her ride. Well, the plan worked and I paid for ours and she paid for the Jones'. Golf went great and we continued to laugh and enjoy getting to know more about one another. I also was very aware of the fact that her parent's had a lake house and I could come up and water ski sometime. (she told me that 3 times!) Anyhow, Stephenie beat me in golf and if anyone knows me, I definitely DID NOT let her win to be nice. She beat me. Plain and simple.
I drove away that night on a high of hoping I could see her again shortly. I got her number from Amanda the following Tuesday in class and did my best to not call her too early. OK, class ended at 9:00 and Stephenie's phone was ringing by 9:02. The rest is history. Life is good, but I'm thrilled to journey with her for the rest of it and don't ever laugh at blind dates. The only one I was ever on landed me one I couldn't let go of.