our story

{Our Story from Dating to being Engaged}

Kristin’s Perspective

Steve and I first met in our youth group at Union Hill Baptist Church. Our church was out in the country with five small towns surrounding it, so our youth group was full of students from different school districts. Steve went to Washington Public Schools while I went to Purcell. Steve is three years older than me so we didn’t really know each other too well; he was just “that guy from Washington” to me.

Our youth group use to go to a camp called Faith Week every summer and after that camp is when I first really “noticed” Steve. After camp one of Steve’s friends was talking to him and asked him what he thought about me and Steve said “well she seems nice and she’s pretty” so his friend encouraged him to go and talk to me at a youth group picnic we were having in the next few days. His friend just happened to be dating one of my friends and told me that he was going to come up and talk to me at the picnic. So, sure enough at that very picnic I was on the complete opposite side from where Steve was and I was in the process of walking across the street with a few girls to head to the pool when I see Steve out of the corner of my eye…galloping! I guess he was coming over to talk to me and I was unaware of that so my friends and I got up to go swim and he definitely made a change in his path toward me. I can still see him today practically galloping to walk with us to the pool. (He won’t admit the galloping). There was one problem though: My Dad.

I wasn’t allowed to date until I was sixteen and I was only fourteen. So, Steve and I would talk at church when my Dad wasn’t around and I made it clear to him that I wouldn’t be allowed to date him or go anywhere with him until I was sixteen and surprisingly he was okay with waiting. So, for 8 months Steve and I would talk at church or talk on instant messenger. I thought I could get away with talking to him on my mom’s cell phone because I was under the belief that we had free nights and weekends but when my parents got the phone bill I realized I was wrong. So, through the phone bill my dad figured who Steve was and that I liked him. I was in BIG trouble.

So months go by and I pay off the phone bill and I start working on my dad to let me date Steve before I was sixteen. I would pray a lot and beg my mom to talk to my dad for me but to no avail would he budge on his rule. Well, one Wednesday night our youth pastor Jason gave Steve the opportunity to lead the devotion at church. Steve had told me that he would be speaking so our plan was to get my dad to come listen then he would realize that Steve was a good guy and then we would be able to date. Good plan, huh? So, from the moment I found out that Steve was speaking I started begging my dad to come listen to him to the point where I was going to get grounded if I asked him one more time. He continued to tell me NO and that he had no reason to go listen to “some guy.” So, I stopped asking and I just prayed that my dad would end up coming.

To my surprise our plan worked!!! My dad ended up being in the back of the youth room that Wednesday night and he invited Steve over for lunch the following Sunday and the rest is history…

THE PROPOSAL:

Steve proposed to me on April 4, 2008 and I was completely shocked!! Steve and I have known for a while that we would probably get married in summer of 2009 after he graduated and “I” had planned to get engaged sometime between Christmas and Spring break of this year. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Steve and I had planned to go home that weekend to see our families and my grandma was coming to town. All week he was asking me if I wanted to go out to dinner with him Friday night because we hadn’t been on a date in a while just me and him. Of course, I kept saying I didn’t want to go because I had not been home in a while and I just wanted to hang out with my family and see my grandma. He kept asking and I kept saying no, not thinking anything about it. He asked me so many times that week that I was getting so frustrated with him that he kept asking me.

Then he asked if we could go to his mom’s house sometime Friday night because on Spring break we bought her a picture frame in New Orléans and I had meant to put a picture in it for the last two weeks and still hadn’t. So, I was like of course we can go to your moms, that’s something we need to do and we could go after the triplets went to sleep so I could still spend almost all night with my family.

He calls me and tells me he’s about twenty minutes away from my house. Then he calls and tells me that he is in Purcell but he got a flat tire and pulled over at Wal-Mart and asked me to come get him. I was like no I’ll just send my dad I won’t be any help. He kept telling me to come and I just wanted my dad to go and I couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t just change his own tire like he has done before. I was getting really frustrated with him yet again because I didn’t understand why he wanted me to come get him and then why he couldn’t change his own tire. (So, I tell my family I am going to get him from Wal-Mart- they are all freaking out because they think Steve is going to propose at Wal-Mart.)

Finally, he said just come and pick me up and we will go to my mom’s then worry about my car later. So, I was on my way to Wal-Mart and I called him to see where he was parked and he told me he was actually out at the lake which is a few miles past Wal-Mart. I thought that’s really weird but I knew he wasn’t proposing because we had agreed that would happen sometime around Christmas. Also, I was about to leave all summer to go work at Kanakuk and I knew he wouldn’t propose when I was about to leave for the whole summer. I kept telling myself that surely he wasn’t proposing.

I get out to the lake and as soon I drive up I knew. I was freaking out and just saying Oh my gosh, oh my gosh over and over in the car. I didn’t even get out of the car and I was just gripping the steering wheel freaking out. Steve had to come and open the door and I was still just in shock. He had 40 candles lit, had encouragement letters I had written to him over the years spread out on the table, his bible was open to our verse and he had potpourri all over the picnic table so it smelled really good. He did an awesome job getting ready for it! Then he asked me and I said yes! I was soooo surprised. I didn’t even realize that we were back at that very spot we had “first” met at our youth group picnic. I had no makeup on just jeans and a t-shirt because I was being so difficult about not going to dinner with him and not wanting to go pick him up and everything. It was definitely the BEST SURPRISE EVER! I am so thankful that he decided to surprise me and didn’t wait until Christmas like I had wanted. It was perfect! He later told me he had planned on waiting until August after I got back from Kanakuk but he said once he had the ring he couldn’t wait.

Steve’s Perspective

I first “noticed” Kristin at Faith Week in the summer of 2003. I didn’t really think about the prospect of dating her because she was slightly younger than me. When I got home from faith week, my friend Tyler and I were talking about dating and girls and all that fun stuff. He asked me if I had ever thought of dating Kristin, and I said no not really, but she is pretty “hott”. Now before any of Kristin’s friends start to gasp at the fact that I thought Kristin was just “hott”, and that I was slightly shallow; “hott” in my mind meant “really pretty”. So I took Tyler’s advice and looked up Kristin’s screen name on AIM, which was superkik08, and we began to communicate via instant messenger.

It wasn’t until a couple weeks later that we had a T.N.T. and I was going to actually meet Kristin and talk to her in person for the first time with her knowing that I actually liked her( we had “known of each other” for about a year being in the same youth group). When I got to the lake in Purcell (were I Proposed to her 5 years later) I saw Kristin across the field, now Kristin likes to say that I “galloped” across the field towards her. This is not correct because I do not gallop! Horses gallop, I don’t! I strutted across the grass to her and romantically said, “what’s up”. At the moment I know she knew that this would be the man I will spend the rest of my life with. Every thing looked like it was going good, but there was one minor problem, her dad!

Kristin’s dad Mike did not want Kristin dating until she was 16. Kristin was only 14 at the time so we had a long time to wait. So I told Kristin that I would wait until she was 16, so we could start dating. We ended up talking on the phone every night, and eventually ended up running Kristin’s mom’s phone bill up to $600! Needless to say Kristin got in some serious trouble and our dating life was put on hold before it even really got a chance to get started. So, finally Kristin and her mom talked Mike into coming and listening to me speak one Wednesday night at church. I was talking about the danger of alcohol, and how it is evil! It is by far the best sermon I have ever preached because that following weekend Mike invited me over for dinner, and the rest is history!

Proposal:

Kristin and I talked about getting engaged somewhere around Christmas time of 2008, and then getting married in the summer of 2009. I of course had different plans. Kristin had hinted at a few rings she liked in March of 08. Well at the end of the month I was able to pay the rest of the ring off and go and pick it up. Kristin had no idea that I was going to Enid. She thought that I was at home in Lindsay. I made it to Enid about 6 o’clock that night and it took me forever to find the diamond store were Kristin’s ring was at. I finally found the store at 6:30, and got the ring! After I got the ring I decided to go and find the famous “Pack A Sack” burger place and got like 10 small cheeseburgers because they are dirt cheap! Kristin called me to ask were I was at and I pretended like I was still home and asleep. Little did she know I was eating a Pack A Sack burger which is her favorite.

I got the ring on Tuesday of the week and decided to ask Kristin to marry me on April 4, that Friday. I had asked her all week to go to dinner with me but she wouldn’t and I was getting really frustrated but finally realized she wouldn’t budge on dinner. So, I had to make up a story of us having to go to my mom’s house just to get her out of her house. Then I had to also make up a story that I got a flat tire and I needed her to come and help me! She of course was hesitant to come and help me and tried to send her dad, who knew what was going on and made her come and help me. I eventually got Kristin to come to the lake and had to drag her out of the car because she was so shocked. She said yes and now we’re getting married!!