Us.

Graham and I met at what we tell kids is the best week of their lives.  Funny, we didn’t know it might be pretty good for us too.  We both took a group of kids to Sharptop Cove in Georgia.  Graham’s bus came from Bradenton, Florida and mine from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Long story short- I thought Graham was the most handsome guy I’d ever seen.  He had a little crush on me, but had to reign it in when he started to think that I was in high school. Awesome.  I know I look young, so I slipped it into conversation that I had graduated from college.  So down went the red flags.  A few days and great conversations later, we got back on our buses headed in opposite directions.

Then began the emails and the phone calls and the first visit.  I flew down to Florida to hang out with Graham for 4 days.  I sat on the plane thinking about how crazy an idea this was.  4 days with someone I had a few hours of face time with.  But, my best friend told me she was proud of me for taking a risk and so I went.

And then he came.  And came again.  And I went.  And I went again and again and again… Then he moved.  Now we both live in Arlington, Virginia.  It’s been a sweet ride and it is only just beginning.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

December 20, 2008

I just asked Graham to type “December 20, 2008″ as the title for this blog post.  He responded, “What happened then?”  This might  be a long life together.

Whatever, I was kidding.

In fact, I do remember December 20th well. I remember my car breaking down on the way to Charlotte. What Erin didn’t know was that she was going to be proposed to that night. If you know me, you know I don’t walk and chew gum at the same time.  So this was quite an inconvenience to my plans. However, it all did work out with only minor drama and we made it to Charlotte in a tow truck. I asked her dad for her hand in marriage on the way to NAPA to buy a new radiator. Erin knew that we were going to go to dinner later that night but she was quite surprised to see what I had laid out to wear. It was not my usual combination of sperrys and jeans. She panicked and had a “sit in” right there on the floor of her bedroom. “Sit in” here is not a figure of speech. She literally sat down cross legged on the floor shaking her head proclaiming that she wasn’t going to dinner. I said “Yes you are.  Get in the shower and let’s go.” She began to warm up to the idea but made me promise, “Its just dinner, right?”  I assured her it was and got her to get ready. We finally made it to dinner. It was the longest meal of my life. We ate for an hour. I don’t mean we were at the restaurant for an hour but it actually took an hour to finish our meal. I was so nervous.  We finally left the restaurant.  We walked around outside for a couple minutes. I left the ring in the car so I wouldn’t ask her on the fly. We got in the car and started driving to her parents house. This part was nerve-racking as well because it started raining fairly hard. I was worried because I had planned to ask her outside but I hadn’t planned on being soaking wet. I drove as slow as I could to try to wait out the rain. It worked. As soon as we pulled in her neighborhood the rain stopped. So naturally I started driving as fast as I could to get there before the rain picked back up.  Twice, Erin told me to slow down. I listened both times but not very well- just well enough not to make her run straight inside mad. I played it well. When we got to the house she wanted to go in the garage but I suggested that we go up to the door. We did and that is where I asked her to marry me.  She said “thank you.”  Not the answer I was looking for, so I asked her, “Ok, but will you marry me?”  Finally, even though it took her the longest 10 seconds of my life, she said, “yes.”