How I met Jay

I'm doing this special blog post for Kelly's Korner "Share your Life" today:)

People ask "What was your first thought when you met your husband?" and my answer "Um, I thought 'Aw, look at the cute little kindergartner' because I was a mature first grader.":)

Jay and I went to the same elementary school/junior high/high school our entire lives -- it's very likely that I actually first saw him when I was 5, and he was 4, since I often went to children's programs at his church with some of my friends.
But we definitely knew each other when he was in kindergarten, and I was in first grade.

Our school was a really small Christian school, and every other year Jay and I would be in the same classroom, as there were 2 grades in each classroom.

He actually attended a different school for one year...the year we would have been together in junior high.

He came back, and we were in high school together.
We both started working on this teen center with a guy from Jay's church -- getting it started, volunteering, etc.  So we started spending some time together outside of school as well.
In school, we started sitting together in classes and getting along pretty well.

Then one day, we had this fund-raising walk for the teen center, and we walked together the entire time, talking about life, what we wanted for our future, etc.  I'm pretty sure I started falling in love that day, though I didn't realize it for a while:)

We became best friends, and I eventually realized I really liked this guy.  Unfortunately, he liked someone else at the time -- and since I was his best friend, he would come to me for advice about this girl.  Oh the agony:)

Finally, he moved on from her (they never dated or anything) and I told him that I had liked him during that time.  He said "Do you still feel that way?" and I said "Sometimes, yeah" but it totally went over his head:)

A month later he asked me the same question, and I answered the exact same way, and he said "Well, me too!" and that was that:)

Everyone around us knew we were in love already, even though we had always protested with "No, we're just friends!" as he brought me flowers every single Wednesday:)

So we finally realized what everyone else already saw, and we started dating halfway through my senior year of high school.

I went away to college 6 hours away, while Jay finished his senior year of high school.  We survived the long-distance relationship, and he joined me at college the next  year.

We got engaged in December of our junior year (Jay finished college in 3 years, so he caught up to me at some point in there:) and were married the summer before our senior year.

We both worked a lot (almost full-time for me!) and went to school full-time that first semester after we were married, and it was great.  We had such a smooth transition into marriage and were so happy to not have to say "Good night!" and go apart at the end of each night:)

We've now been married for 5 1/2 years, have moved 3 times, bought and sold a house, finished college, Jay has gotten a masters degree and is now getting his PhD, and we've had a baby!  Whew!

He's still my best friend in the world, and I'm so grateful that I realized I was supposed to be with him!:)