Our Story (Part I)

I wanted to tell our story just in case some of you don't know Andrew or how we met.  If you were to have told me that I would marry Andrew Chaney my first or second year of college, I would have called you CRAZY!! So I'll let you in on how everything unfolded!

This is our Lifegroup and we are basically on opposite ends of the picture! 

I'm not going to lie to you. Andrew was a HOTTIE from day one! I had a crush on him when I met him but I was 18 years old and knew that nothing would ever happen! Anyways, I met Andrew my freshman year in Lifegroup (a small group from church). I could honestly say that I can't really remember really meeting the guy that early on my freshman year though because I was a stupid Freshman that was secretly into every Christian guy (which he is, but I might have been looking the other direction)!

It was really my Sophomore year that I really started getting to know this guy! He would invite me to any sporty thing him and his friends were doing and I absolutely went to every single one of them.  He told me one time that I was actually the only one who would ever respond to his texts.  It was really just because I wanted to play sports...but I won't tell him that! :) We played a ton of racquetball and basketball.  I loved every single moment of it.  It was also this year that we had a class together.  This class was called Fitness Theory and Practice, so we played basketball together every Tuesday and Thursday.  How great is that!?! But again, I had my eyes on another guy...he might have been my teacher...but he just graduated from undergrad, so it was kind of ok. We all have our stupidness.  (Side note: Andrew recently told me that there was one day when we were playing basketball together in class that I touched his stomach and thought I was totally into him.)  This year I also watched Andrew try his hand at the gallon challenge...I don't know how this didn't make me fall in love with him!

My Lifegroup from Waco came to my house in Austin to spend the weekend and had a blast.  My friends thought that Andrew looked just like my brother, so he took a picture with me and my parents pretending to be my brother! Oh how things have changed!! This is the picture from that weekend!

The summer after my Sophomore year is when things really started happening! Andrew stayed the whole summer in Austin with his aunt to shadow a dentist...I think it was to be with me all summer, but he won't admit that! He only shadowed the dentist once, so you decide why he was in Austin all summer. I absolutely did NOT mind that he was with me ALL summer though...I was starting to fall for him...but I never showed him that! Towards the end of May, a huge tornado hit his hometown of Joplin, Missouri.  His whole family was there at the time and it was a very scary time not being able to get a hold of them.  Thankfully his family was pretty much unaffected by the tornado, however, Andrew decided to take a trip up there! I know you are all wondering if I went with him, and OF COURSE I went with him! We made the trip up there with our friend Krystal and were able to help out quite a bit with the tornado relief.  It was a blast to be there and to see Andrew around his friends and family! He was a completely different guy than I saw in Waco! I was starting to like him!

After that trip, Andrew went a couple of weeks later! This ABSOLUTELY broke my heart! When I said goodbye to him, I finally got my first "real" hug from him and I ran inside to my mom and started bawling because I couldn't stand the idea of being away from him! Turned out that Krystal (who was going back with him again) forgot her purse at my house the night before they were going to leave (they were going to leave straight from Andrew's Aunt's house) and instead of coming back to get it that night, Andrew wanted to be able to see me again, so I took it to them the next morning! I got to see him one more time before they left, and I was beside myself! However, after they left for good, I bawled the whole way home from Andrew's Aunt's house.  I finally realized I was falling for this man!

Turns out, my church from Austin was taking a trip to Joplin a couple of days after Andrew left and my friend Madison was going on the trip! I was a freeloader and caught a ride to see the guy that I would one day marry...oh...I mean I was a freeloader and was going to help out with the devastation! :) It was on this trip that Andrew told me that he LIKED me!!!

You will have to come back for the next post to hear the rest of the story.