Patrick and I met in July of 2000, it was our friend's birthday. Patrick had just moved back to a town that he had moved away from as a child. A few years prior, I had moved to this town of Fayetteville and was attending the school that he attended as a child, College Lakes Christian Academy. While at this school, I was making friends with his childhood friends that he had left behind, and in July of 2000 our worlds would collide. Although we did not know it at the time, we would never be the same. This mutual friend went to a Japanese restaurant for her birthday and I remember introducing myself to him, but he was the quite type and did not say much. After dinner, they took a picture of the whole group. I love this picture, because not many couples have a picture from the day that they first saw each other. It would take us another year and a half to start dating. Of course, there was the occasional flirtatious glare or chat, but at the time we both were unavailable so we were strictly friends. Patrick graduated and left for basic training in the US Army, during this time we started writing letters to each other, as friends. When Patrick returned home, he then started college at North Carolina State University and I still had another year left at College Lakes to finish high school. Patrick and his girlfriend had already gone their separate ways but me and my boyfriend of three years were in the process of going our separte ways. So my senior year was a huge emotional roller coaster for me. My friends were mad at me for breaking up with what they thought was a great guy for a guy that they thought would just be a fling, that would eventually be flung! Haha Boy, were they wrong. Not only friends but family too. My mom and grandmother especially they hated the fact of me dumping what they thought would be the perfect son-in-law, because he was student government president, starter on the football team, writer for the local newspaper, and in college to become a lawyer. But all these things did not matter to me. I was starting to find more meaningful things in Patrick. One of the more important characteristics, Patrick is a Christian and believes the same things I believe. Over Christmas break (when Patrick came home from college), our friendship developed into something more. And from then on, we were planning ways to see each other more and more. Which leads me to our first kiss, it was after we had finished watching Autumn in New York, but I will leave all the juicy details to your imagination. Wink, wink! I often joke, because this same night I had made a home-made apple pie for home economics class. So I guess food is the way to a man's heart. And the rest is history. We now have been married 3 almost 4 years. We are truly happily married and still remain best friends and love spending every day together, and are looking forward to the building of our family in the future. Just a note the picture is from our honeymoon.