Who woulda thought?!

You could say this whole thing was a set up. Nonchalantly at Blair’s thanksgiving dinner in 2019, her family got together and discussed what they were looking forward to for the year of 2020, and she said “A ring”. Quickly moving to dismiss the joke, she pretended as if it were nothing. Then, as Blair left a life in Dallas and moved to the desert plains of Midland, Texas to work at Midland Classical Academy as an intern, her focus was loving on kiddos. However, she didn’t know that there would be a “special someone” waiting for her in Midland.
 
All the while, the previous year Justin also made a major career move, from working at a successful job in Houston in Industrial Engineering to teaching crazy kids at MCA, not thinking in a year’s time he would be meeting the girl he would later marry. Having dismissed the idea of dating for a couple more years, he was content with the life he was living with his roommate Andrew, until Blair shows up on scene. 



Spending the entire year working together, asking each other about lesson plans and student drama, Blair and Justin grew their friendship. From the oil change runs, gospel presentation classes, and discussions about baseball, Blair began to take notice of Justin. With the close-nit environment of MCA comments were made, “What about Justin? Why don’t you go out with him!?”, “Have you ever thought about dating Justin?”, or “What if Justin asked you to dinner? What would you do?” Blair didn’t think much of it, she just continued on with what she was doing, all the while Justin was getting pushed to step up and ask her out. 

 As the year went on, 2019 came and went, it was sometime early spring when Justin started to listen to those wheels that were spinning. Deciding not to act on anything, Coronavirus hits the world and MCA went virtual for the rest of the semester, and Justin juggles the idea of moving back to Houston. Although the pandemic tried to slow the potential of their relationship, God and Justin had different plans. 

 Come Mid-May Justin reaches out to Blair and asks her what she thought about church ministry. To Justin’s unknown fact, Blair had felt called into ministry since she was 16 years old. She desired to do ministry with her husband since she was in high school. As they talked for hours on end, hours became days, days became weeks, and weeks became months, and they realized that they wanted to try this thing called dating. After the long distant virtual date nights, the spontaneous trips to see each other, and the difficult "I Love You's", they both knew they were home. They knew they were with the person God had planned.

With both families coming in town to meet and look for the perfect venue, Blair thought the occasion to be "too perfect" for Justin to catch the hint... but come to find out, Blair was actually the one being set up. Blair being under the impression that October would just be for a family introduction, she was completely clueless that in hours upon their arrival, there would be a ring on her finger. As their date night was planned for the delicious Cork & Pig, Blair and Justin spent the day talking about their delicious fried calamari and excitement for a couple of moments alone. The reservation was "scheduled" for 7:30pm so Blair and her mom hurried to get ready and meet up with Justin and his family at his grandpa's house. Walking around the house with a random box, Justin pushed Blair to get outside for some alone time to open this random coffee cup... With the perfect weather, beautiful lights draped from the tree in the backyard, Blair started to open her coffee cup box and as she pulled her cup out of the box Justin was down on one knee. To no one's surprise Blair freaked out and screamed "Shut UP, this is not happening!" Obviously she said yes and all the photos and tears began. There ended up not being any Cork & Pig, Justin just needed Blair to not look like the usual "hobo" that she did with leggings and a big t-shirt. He needed her to be in picture worthy clothes, because he knew she would be embarrassed if she wasn't prepared.